The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) says it has approved another $74 million in California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grants to expand affordable high-speed Internet infrastructure to underserved communities across the Golden State.

According to the CPUC’s recent announcement, the funding will support six new Internet access infrastructure projects across Marin, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Sonoma counties, bringing reliable, high-speed Internet service to nearly 1,800 previously completely unserved homes and businesses.  

Three providers will be spearheading the six expansion projects:

• Surfnet Communications will receive up to $33.2 million to construct the Santa Barbara Fiber and Central Coast Fiber Broadband projects, serving 1,293 unserved locations across Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz counties.
• WiConduit and GigabitNow will receive up to $32.4 million for the Forestville Connect Extension, Graton Connect, and Sonoma Coast Connect Extension projects, bringing fiber broadband service to 341 unserved locations in Sonoma County.
• Hankins Information Technology will receive up to $8.5 million for the West Marin Project, providing fiber broadband service to 154 unserved locations in Bolinas, Nicasio, Point Reyes Station, Stinson Beach, and surrounding communities in Marin County.

The investments are an ongoing part of California’s landmark $6 billion Broadband for All Initiative, which prioritized closing the digital divide in all of California’s 58 counties, which recently culminated in the launch of the state’s new $3.2 billion Middle-Mile Broadband Initiative (MMBI).

With vaccines rolling out tier by tier, state by state, and restaurants, bars and public spaces starting to reopen one by one, there seems to be a desire to say, “Wow, things are going back to normal!” Unfortunately, the public health crisis exacerbated healthcare, education, and economic inequities that have long existed in low-income and communities of color across the country and have no chance of going away any time soon. But some community leaders have stepped up and come to the table with one piece of the puzzle in bridging these inequities — better Internet access to these communities. 

Over the summer, we covered several communities that jumped to action and came up with quick ways to implement long-term solutions. 

The city of San Rafael, which sits on the coast of northern California in Marin County, continues to strengthen, expand, and research the use of the network it built over the summer and fall for one unserved area hit hard by the economic, education, and health impact of Covid-19. And on the other side of the country, Meta Mesh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania continues construction on a pilot project that is hoping to connect unserved families by the end of this summer.

Focusing on the Future

In San Rafael, California, the city, Marin County and a nonprofit organization — the Canal Alliance — all joined forces to bring free Wi-Fi to the Canal neighborhood.