Broadband Consortium Update

Dear Gold Country Broadband Consortium members and supporters/seekers of high-speed Internet access, I wanted to give you a brief update of the status of our project to organize the demand for broadband service and expand broadband infrastructure in the counties of Sierra, Nevada, Placer, El Dorado and eastern Alpine.

As you know, we submitted our proposal on time for consideration by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and funding from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). Ours was one of some fifteen proposals submitted from all over the State with most of them covering multiple counties. We’ve been told that the CASF staff is now busily sorting through each of the proposals, and an announcement about funding awards is anticipated by late-November/early-December. With a formal CPUC resolution some time later in December, we could anticipate being ready to go in January 2012. When we do so, we anticipate calling the first major meeting of the entire Consortium membership in order to confirm our direction and have the first breakout sessions by the various stakeholder groups to address the respective state-of-the-art (s.o.t.a.), the state of the locally available services, and how current local capabilities might be advanced towards the s.o.t.a. We will also want to begin the process of prioritizing and scheduling the locations for the initial community outreach meetings. So, there are exciting times ahead. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

Thanks for your continued interest and support!

Brent Smith, CEO
Sierra Economic Development Corporation (SEDCorp)
560 Wall Street, Suite F, Auburn, CA 95603

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