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claudeo
join:2000-02-23
Redmond, WA
| Apalling
I don't know what is more apalling -- the fact that a whole region of California only has this single fragile high speed link to the outside world, or the ignorance exhibited in several of the posts above. There is much more to Humboldt and Del Norte counties than the pot growers for which Humboldt is famous. The broadband link going down affected a lot of legitimate businesses and people, not to mention the health system, schools, universities, air traffic control and emergency services. Running another fiber optic cable is not a matter of making another run through town, as you would know if you took a look at a map. For many years that corner of California only had a microwave link and all "broadband" for all users had to squeeze through that small link. When they finally ran a fiber optic cable along 101 there was still no backup using another route. Many rural users can still get no broadband at all. Because the phone companies had "modernized" their lines with cheap multiplexing that also precludes DSL, in the boonies it's either dial-up or satellite, with dial-up connections topping off at 24,000bps. | |
WillitsOnline
@willitsonline.com
| You make it sound like there's no options at all. In fact, WillitsOnline (plug) serves Laytonville, Covelo, and other areas using our own microwave network, which was built partly because there were no telco facillities and partly because what was there, is woefully unreliable in the first place. AND WE DIDN'T GO DOWN, so if you had our service, you would have remained online.
The 'problem' is not lack of redundant fiber. It's a lack of investment in the future and leadership that is the problem, and it is this very situation which gave birth to my company. So I may not be in fortuna or garberville or redway today, the fact is that without coddling and without massive tax breaks, financial incentives or any of the other inducements which otherwise are just handed to att like candy, we have established a large area of covererage which is not dependent on these single points of failure and many who 'went down' when att did, stayed up because they had us.
I took pictures and will be posting them later. What burned up was a shack along highway 101 that was right underneath their ariel cables. When the shack went it literally melted the cables, nothing you can do about that really except have buried cables.
Also I should note that many of the small central offices in these parts are actually verizon and are served with microwave not fiber anyways....
Mike- | |
jstone00
join:2004-06-19
Fortuna, CA | reply to claudeo
An intelligent post! | |
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