[Davisgig] We have some action - Going to send this out to the announce list tomorrow and publish on FB and Twitter

[Robert Nickerson]

DavisGIG came together in Jan 2015 in order to advocate for better 
Internet Access options for residents of Davis. We are pleased to 
announce that after 2.66 years these efforts are beginning to succeed. 
DavisGIG is advocating for a community-driven model that benefits the 
city government, the residents, and the cause of economic development. 
DavisGIG developed a business model we would like to see happen in the 
City around fiber. The City government  is very engaged with a 
consultant to examine the costs of a fiber deployment and several 
business models ours one of them, with near term results expected.

While all this is happening, City staff advised both ATT and Comcast 
that our City is seriously considering its own fiber optic deployment, 
and our David has roused Goliath. ATT is building FTTH in a small 
portion of our City! DavisGIG advocates predicted that our first benefit 
would be forcing a reaction from incumbent carriers, either better 
prices, or better service, or both, to derail a community led effort.

And so it has come to pass...

ATT will build Fiber to the Home (FTTH) in Old North Davis between 5th 
and 7th on B, C, and D Streets. We don't know of other locations in the 
City but DavisGIG volunteers do have access to ATT copper based ordering 
systems, and we find this small area no longer supports ordering of any 
copper based facilities for Internet. After checking through Internet 
vendors that operate in the are and contacts we have confirmed this area 
is now Fiber Only, with construction on the way. You can be sure we will 
keep our eye out on this and advise as to other locations we see that 
are no longer registering as available for copper. Is this the first 
step to a complete City wide build out? Perhaps?! Davis is an affluent 
town after all, but that remains to be seen.

This same move was done by ATT in Santa Cruz CA when they got wind of a 
collaboration between the long time local ISP, CruzIO, and the City of 
Santa Cruz. Although ATT Gigapower fiber was put in Santa Cruz over 2 
years ago, it still just remains the one neighborhood. CruzIO is 
proceeding with a FTTH deployment on their own, good on them!

We don't want ATT snooping on all our Internet uses, or reinforcing 
their monopoly. We want a City owned, community-operated 
telecommunications network that meets the needs of our community; our 
schools, our residents, UCD. We want oversight of our telecommunications 
community-based operation provides, and we want a selection of ISPs to 
compete for sales to our citizens, not just one that charges monopoly 
pricing. We want our City to have a valuable asset that it can then 
lease to 5G Cell operators, use for SmartGrid Applications, or other 
uses the future requires. Ubiquitous fiber is coming to our town as 
these cell phone company fiber networks are built, let's have our City 
benefit from that directly, have a fiber network ready to lease to them. 
The City needs revenues, businesses needs neutral, ubiquitous, reliable 
connectivity. This project will lift the boat for everyone.

We believe this development should inspire our City leaders to continue, 
when they see the large incumbents investing in this opportunity. We 
would like to thank everyone involved in the effort that has gotten us 
to this point, which is the first solid success for better Internet 
options for Davis.

-- 
Robert Nickerson
UCD Class of 1996
CEO, Om Networks

cell: 5308483865
www.omsoft.com