Posted March 28th, 2010 by seanm
Current information is available here:
Humboldt Community Access Network - HCAN
http://accesshumboldt.net/site/hcan
posted 24 March 2010
Access Humboldt shares Digital Redwoods vision for public benefit broadband
invites public engagement and support
Letters of support and partnership are available online - community organizations and individuals are asked to send a signed letter (letterhead of your business or organization is best) - in .pdf format to admin@accesshumboldt.net or faxed to 707-476-1702
Here's the idea -
(DRAFT)
Humboldt Community Access Network
public benefit broadband
Executive summary (draft – working document)
The Humboldt Community Access Network (HCAN) microwave middle-mile network will connect 31 community anchors (and more than 200 in the future) throughout the remote, mountainous and largely underserved Humboldt County, California, with interconnection in the North to Yurok Tribe's network that will connect with Del Norte County facilities in Crescent City.
HCAN places particular emphasis on improving public safety functions, promoting educational opportunities, and serving the County’s significant population of economically disadvantaged and “least served” residents. The project will encompass public-private partnerships and enable private last-mile providers to deliver service to remote and unserved areas, including Native American lands and other least served communities.
The network truly embodies the spirit and the purpose of the Recovery Act in general, and BTOP comprehensive community infrastructure projects in particular: It will create jobs, promote economic development and educational achievement, and bring broadband access to vulnerable populations including underserved tribal lands. It will encompass creative public-private partnerships and enable private last-mile providers to deliver service to currently unserved residents.
Ultimately, given Humboldt County’s remote location, general lack of infrastructure, and high level of poverty (almost 20 percent, according to recent Census statistics), this project will provide broadband access to community anchors that almost certainly would remain unserved by the private sector.
H-CAN will be locally owned and accountable to open transparent governance. All public funds will be used to create public benefit assets that will be managed and maintained for public, education and government (PEG) purposes.
Microwave Conquers Geography
The H-CAN microwave middle-mile infrastructure was designed in a very cost-effective way that recognizes not only the prohibitive expense of building fiber in these mountainous rural areas (and over such long distances), but also the very real drawbacks of constructing fiber over this type of terrain.
With one fiber line running north to south through the County and terminating in the town of Eureka, local governments and residents know the pitfalls of single-route fiber; when the fiber is inadvertently cut south of the area, communications shut down. Fiber cuts are potentially avoidable, however—and the County’s weather and terrain are not. Many of the County’s mountainous roads are closed for the winter, and landslides and mudslides in warmer weather often bring down terrestrial communications infrastructure.
The project’s well-designed wireless architecture and overall technology strategy address these geography-specific limitations and establish a resilient, survivable infrastructure for the service area—and in the process, create a critical public safety tool for a region that is at significant risk of natural disasters.
Public Safety Focus
HCAN is partially a public safety network that will rectify the County’s perilous lack of survivable communications infrastructure. The County's Sheriff, which houses the County’s Office of Emergency Services, is a strong advocate and supporter of the project, because its leadership recognizes the potential day-to-day benefits of having a reliable and robust wireless network that would enable fixed and mobile communications to even the most remote corners of its service area.
Beyond even those day-to-day needs, the County faces a critical public safety need for broadband. The County is located in one of the most hazardous earthquake zones in the country. Its disaster plan has examined the region and determined that more than a dozen areas of the County could be isolated and cut off by a large-magnitude natural event. In such a scenario, those communities would become isolated islands—and communication assets would take on a critical role.
Humboldt County’s annual fire season, while not on the magnitude of a major earthquake, is a regular event that starkly illustrates the need for more robust and resilient broadband communications for public safety. The County has 32 fire districts, including remote volunteer fire stations. Each year, fire patrol camps—mini towns, really—spring up in staging areas near likely fire hot spots. Broadband connectivity for the command centers is essential, but sorely lacking. In the town of Orleans, when the last major fire event doubled the population with firefighters, the fire service paid a carrier to bring in a portable cellular tower to support emergency communications. Once the fire was out and the firefighters decamped, so did the carrier and its portable tower.
The fire season highlights another truth: Every community anchor and public facility across the County—from schools and libraries to community centers and government buildings—could conceivably become a disaster response and recovery facility during an emergency. Each of these facilities, then, needs communications infrastructure that meets not just its day-to-day needs, but is capable of reliably supporting emergency communications functions.
In a similar vein, HCAN’s middle-mile broadband connection to the district’s community college, College of the Redwoods, serves not just an educational goal, but a public safety mission. For volunteer firefighters in small, remote fire patrol camps, regular training is essential—but the firefighters cannot generally leave their posts for the substantial time it would take to drive to a distant training center. The danger of leaving their positions unfilled is simply too great. With videoconferencing, however, College of the Redwoods could deliver its training curriculum to distant facilities—allowing firefighters to receive the training they need while protecting their communities.
Yet another public safety aspect of HCAN’s middle-mile network is the provision of high-bandwidth transport service for local media (radio, broadcast television, public-access cable television). With the digital television (DTV) transition last year, many Humboldt County residents lost access to local media; without it, they have no way of receiving emergency alert messages. H-CAN will ensure that all residents can receive important instructions and information during an emergency situation.
Serving Vulnerable Residents
HCAN will provide the myriad benefits of high-speed middle-mile capacity to key community anchors that have expressed significant commitment to the project, including the Sheriff’s Office, College of the Redwoods, public libraries, health care providers and a range of tribal entities.
Beyond its overall public safety focus, the H-CAN middle-mile infrastructure project was conceived to connect community anchors that provide services to local and Native residents, including public safety facilities, local government buildings, social service agencies, libraries, public computer centers, community colleges, and other entities.
The project will provide middle-mile capacity to anchors in remote and least served parts of the County—providing broadband media services for College of the Redwoods, that they cannot currently purchase, at any cost, for their ambitious videoconference-based distance education and training programs.
Project Management
HCAN will be developed and managed by Access Humboldt, a local non-profit organization with a significant history of championing technology for educational and civic purposes. Access Humboldt convenes monthly open public Board meetings to ensure that the governance represents all of the County’s local communities. Its core mission is to support the public interest, and it pursues initiatives to expand broadband access for underserved communities (including the 60 percent of Humboldt County that is unserved), and of partnering with public and private entities in innovative and creative ways to meet those goals.
A current Access Humboldt project, for example, is Digital Rio Dell, which brought together a range of public and private partners to offer free public Wi-Fi in the small, rural City of Rio Dell. Through its innovative, public-interest-focused local partnerships, Access Humboldt was able to secure cost-effective bandwidth and backbone Internet access; donated equipment; and low-cost maintenance services. As a result, Access Humboldt’s operating costs for this robust, locally owned and operated community broadband network are sustainable through local donations.
HCAN will extend this model. It will include a creative public-private partnership—based on joint activities Access Humboldt has cultivated over several years—leveraging the publicly funded middle-mile infrastructure to partner with private last-mile infrastructure to serve many of the County’s currently unserved residents and businesses.
Private sector partners have contributed to the process, as well. A local communications equipment manufacturer and local internet service provider have been longtime donors of hardware and services to support connectivity for unserved and underserved communities, donating significant design and planning services and preparation for this project.
The public-private partnership aspects of the HCAN project will not only expand the network reach and its impact on the lives of our least served residents and of community anchors, but also will contribute to the network’s sustainability and low operating costs by enabling sharing of existing and new infrastructure costs.
Total project cost, approximately $5 million public investment to reach sustainability. All net revenue is retained and reinvested for public benefit purposes (non-profit, non-commercial) to serve local community needs and interests.
# # #
Support letters and inquiries can be addressed to:
Sean McLaughlin
Executive Director
Access Humboldt
P.O. Box 157
Eureka, CA 95502
tel: 707-476-1798
fax: 707-476-1702
DC: 202-495-0616
e: sean@accesshumboldt.net
http://accesshumboldt.net
http://digitalredwoods.net
