The Nevada County Last-Mile Broadband Grant was submitted on 6th December. You may have seen in The Union newspaper on Jan 9th that Nevada County is requesting public comments on the three grant proposals. Click here to read The Union Newspaper article.
To help reinforce the need for the Nevada County Fiber, Inc project I would encourage you to provide your own input as to why we should receive the grant funding to bring high speed fiber optic broadband to homes in the Red Dog Rd and Banner LavaCap community.
To make your comments to Nevada County as to why they should support our grant request for fiber optic broadband click here
Please feel free to express the challenges you have with your existing internet access, and why high speed fiber optic will improve our community, public safety and economic development.
To review the grant applications that have been received by Nevada County please click here
Below is the section from The Union about the Nevada County Fiber, Inc proposal.
NEVADA COUNTY FIBER
Nevada County Fiber is asking for $223,889 for a proposal that would bring underground fiber optics with a 100-megabyte-per-second starting speed to about 60 homes in the Red Dog/Banner Quaker Hill Road area during the project’s first phase.
The project timeline estimates the homes will be online by July 2021, and includes some flexibility that allows the proposal to be scaled down to an initial 20-home installation for $125,000, if the full funding isn’t available.
The proposal also includes public safety pods that would provide real-time monitoring of evacuation routes in the area and potentially remotely deploy Wi-Fi in emergency situations.
“I think it would be easier for the county to fund more projects like this if we can tie it to public safety and economic development,” Wilkinson said. “That to me would be the big win-win.”
Wilkinson said he started the project because he lives and has had to deal with limited internet availability, with his teenage children asking why they have to live “in the middle of the forest.”
“The reason why I’m doing this is because I was faced with a choice: I either move or I fix broadband in my area,” Wilkinson said. “It had gotten that black-and-white for me. If we don’t do something people are not going to want to live here.”
To contact The Union Staff Writer John Orona, email jorona@theunion.com or call 530-477-4229