The Digital 299 middle mile fiber project will receive a $47 million subsidy from the California Advanced Services Fund. The line begins in Shasta County, just south of Redding where it will connect to long haul fiber on the I-5 corridor, and runs along State Route 299 through Trinity County, ending on the coast in Humboldt County at Eureka, with laterals to a potential submarine cable landing site on Arcata Bay and Humboldt State’s marine lab in Trinidad. It also includes a spur up to Hoopa tribal lands along State Route 96. It’ll be built and operated by Inyo Networks/Praxis Associates, the commonly owned companies responsible for the similar Digital 395 project in eastern California.
The California Public Utilities Commission voted 4 to 1 to approve the grant yesterday, with president Michael Picker voting no. It pays for 70% of middle mile construction costs – $45 million of $65 million total – and 60% of a small last mile build for 300 homes in the Trinity County community of Lewiston, $1.5 million of $2.4 million total. People living in Lewiston will be able to get symmetrical gigabit Internet service for $60 per month.
Originally, Inyo Networks proposed offering this fast and cheap package to a total of 1,000 homes, in Douglas City, Hayfork and Burnt Ranch as well as Lewiston, but it had to slash 700 homes from the last mile component of the project. That was because Frontier Communications protested, promising instead to upgrade broadband speeds to 1,200 homes in the area to 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds. That’s something Frontier has to do anyway, to meet requirements attached to federal broadband subsidies it’s accepted. It’s also below the CPUC’s minimum 6 Mbps download and 1.5 Mbps upload standard, but Frontier dodged around that requirement by telling the CPUC that it “estimates that approximately 70 percent of these households will receive speeds greater than the minimum speed (12 mbps down and 2 mbps up, or higher)”.
The project budget also includes construction of up to 15 towers that would be attached to the network and provide a platform for mobile carriers, public safety radio systems and other wireless services: potential middle mile fiber customers, in other words.