After the gold rush …
Is Digital 395 just another version of an (un)heated sidewalk?
Last decade, when the Town of Mammoth decided to remake Old Mammoth Road into a “modern,” more pedestrian-friendly resort corridor with narrower traffic lanes and actual sidewalks, a big selling point to the deal was that coils woujld be run under the sidewalks so that glycerin could be pumped through to heat walkways in winter. Of course, the system would require a heat source and no one ever wanted to actually spend the money developing or maintaining that source, so the coils remain under the sidewalk, like a buried time capsule that’s been long forgotten.
Fast forward to the latest fancy-pants creation that was meant to help us slog through the slush of stop-and-go local internet traffic.
Big dollars have been spent on the Digital 395 project that’s supposed to bring high-speed broadband Internet service to the communities surrounding the highway that bears its name, but now that its completed and underground, it’s out of sight and out of mind … unless you’re trying to download pictures from your home in Twin Lakes or Hammil Valley.
The 583-mile fiber-optic cable is the most advanced and highest capacity broadband fiber in the nation and cost more than $109 million, according to its builders. The last or latest hurdle for the project seems to be public access and education.
Internet service providers can hook up to D395, but they don’t seem to want to.
Verizon has had a near monopoly over telecommunications in the area. While it did connect its aging infrastructure to D395 after 9,000 feet of its cable burned in the Round Fire, it quickly disconnected once its own cable was fixed.
Verizon is getting ready to cut loose its landlines with a possible sale to Frontier Communications. (A public hearing on the acquisition and a chance to bash or praise Verizon is set for Aug. 21 in Mammoth.)
There is access to the fiber in Mono County, available at up to 10 gigabit per second service and directly to homes or businesses and at intentionally low prices from a local provider. No, this is not an advertisement. Inyo Networks will hook directly into D395 and to a customer’s home or business via network “anchor points.” The price for installation depends on where a customer lives. Inyo Networks is a partner of Praxis Associates, the company that dug the ditch and laid the pipe and fiber in the first place.
The fiber cable has access points every 4,500 feet, but few are being used for public access. The public does not have direct access to the network run by the California Broadband Cooperative; only governmental bodies and agencies do, such as the Naval Air Weapons Station, China Lake in Ridgecrest or the Mono County Sheriff’s Department and institutions like schools and hospitals. There are 300 of these “anchor points.”
The public can hook directly up to the network, as Kirk Hartstrom did in Devil’s Gate and become an ISP for those residents with the help of Inyo Networks. Suddenlink is also hooked up to the network.
A resident who lives a distance from an anchor point, such as in Virginia Lakes or Twin Lakes, Mammoth and Bridgeport respectively, can have a line connected, if price is not an issue.
“This is where the conversation gets sticky,” said Nate Greenberg, Information Technology Specialist for the county and the town and board member of the cooperative.
Some municipalities are becoming ISPs, such as Sandynet in Sandy, Oregon. Mono County is not in the business of being an ISP but Greenberg gave an example of the county working with the Bridgeport area Community Service District 5 in trying to get wireless service to Twin Lakes residents. But this is still in the works.
Michael Ort, chief executive officer for Inyo Networks said he expected more “adoption of the services,” more ISPs connected, but technology has advanced considerably along with demand for broadband in the six years since the project began. The unforeseen demand for streaming entertainment, like Netflix and multiple demands in a single household, has all evolved in that short time.
Gigabit service is becoming the norm, Ort explained. A far cry from dial-up service with 56 kilobits speed meaning ten days to download a 700 MB movie.
Greenberg said the Eastern Sierra Connect Regional Broadband Consortium is working on educating the pubic as to what service is available in the county via a “Broadband Access Tool” it will develop.
Greenberg, explained the checkered history of internet access in the area and the rise of D395. Before the fiber optic cable, Verizon was the sole provider and Suddenlink was purchasing its access from Verizon. But Verizon’s infrastructure was failing, unable to keep up with increased demands and access was dismal at best. Then D395 was completed and put an end to Verizon’s monopoly as service provider. Suddenlink now buys access directly from the cooperative.
The future of Internet access in Mono County appears bright and fast but time and patience will be necessary to see where it ends up.
D395 was paid for with $81.1 million in federal stimulus money from in 2010 and the California Public Utilities Commission pitched in a $19.1 million grant.
