Fiber Dreams in Small Town USA → Way to go

I see this becoming more and more of a trend as more communities do the same thing.
We have read many articles as of late detailing other such initiatives.
In the two years since the county started building its network, it has drawn 12 Internet service providers (ISPs), two video providers and one telephone company to sell services using the network.

Who's the "phone company"? Pacific Bell? Shut them out of it. It would serve them right. Turnabout is fair play, after all.

The phone company is called Local Tel.
[text was edited by author 2002-07-31 19:46:49]

You live in the area where this backbone is buried?

Grant county is where the phone company called Local tel is operating and it's about 250 miles east, across the mountains from me. Mason and Kitsap counties are about 30 to 40 miles west and across the Puget Sound from here; that's about as close as the Bonneville backbone comes to Tacoma.

The main backbone is provided by the Bonneville Power Administration. Bonneville has a fiber backbone that runs across the states of Washington, Oregon, and parts of Idaho and Montana. The fiber backbone is used to monitor their dams and other power facilities. They sell their excess fiber capacity to a nonprofit called Noanet. Noanet maintains a network that uses that fiber capacity and sells to any PUD located in the four states.

So far Grant, Mason, Chelan, and a few other counties in Washington state have taken advantage of the fiber capacity to provide fiber to the home to their customers.

I suspect that if this works out. PUDs in Oregon, Idaho and Montana may join in at some later date. Of course raising the capital to do these projects is a big hurdle for these PUDs. Having a money making Hydoelectric dam in your back yard is a big advantage in these situations.

said by TACSPEED:

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So far Grant, Mason, Chelan, and a few other counties in Washington state have taken advantage of the fiber capacity to provide fiber to the home to their customers.

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Clark Public Utilities has been looking at the Tacoma Power model,and the economic benefits flowing to "America's most wired City". They did an outstanding job during the West Coast Power fraud, turning half of our BPA power back to supply shortages at other Wa. PUD's. CPU is cheaper and better than the Enron utility across the river.

Public Utilities can often do a better job than private ones with good management and public scrutiny.The Northwest has some of the lowest rates in the USA for electric power as a result. I'd rather have my local PUD than AT&T broadband or QWEST.

said by TACSPEED:

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So far Grant, Mason, Chelan, and a few other counties in Washington state have taken advantage of the fiber capacity to provide fiber to the home to their customers.

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How can I find out if they will feed fiber to my location?
I'm in Grapeview, about 3mi off of hwy 3 by road.
My power is already underground.

- Scott