If you cannot attend the AT and T presentation at the BOS meeting tomorrow; AT and T just sent me what they will be talking about

I just received this from AT and T:

"AT&T will meet with members of the community and elected officials at the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors. The session is to discuss the completion of network upgrades, which allow the network to be self-healing when a fiber cut occurs and will help protect phone and internet services for consumers and businesses in the North Coast from outages. The upgrades prevented widespread outages during the Clayton Fire in Lake County. AT&T will also provide an update on its build out of high-speed Internet services to over 141,000 rural, remote, and hard-to-reach California locations as part of the Connect America Fund. A letter from AT&T to regional officials is attached and provides details regarding the network enhancements."





Text of a September 19 letter sent to Mendocino Board of Supervisors with a cc to other elected officials including Congressman Huffman, Senator McGuire and Assemblyman Wood and Napa, Lake, Sonoma and Humboldt Board of Supervisors:


Dear Members of the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors,
AT&T announced last December we would be upgrading our network in the North Coast to increase protection against outages or service disruptions caused by fiber damage. We are happy to report that these upgrades are now complete.

These upgrades provide geographic diversity to over 91% of the fiber in the North Coast. This includes utilizing full diversity along the Highway 36 fiber line. These improvements allow our network to be self-healing when a fiber cut occurs, and will help protect phone and internet services for consumers and businesses in the North Coast from outages.

A second phase of the project, which was added onto the original plan to cover southern Sonoma County, will provide the same benefits to that portion of the network. This phase will be completed by the end of the year.

Diversity upgrades prevented widespread outages during Clayton Fire in Lake County. We are already seeing the positive effects of this project in the region. These improvements enhance our network’s resilience and protect services from interruptions by drastically reducing the area and number of customers affected when a fiber cut occurs. The recent Clayton Fire in Lake County provides an example. When the fire burned a section of fiber cable, most wired traffic was rerouted along diverse fiber paths. This maintained service to the greater region and contained the affected area to a much smaller footprint. Wireless services were also rerouted and not affected, enabling critical communication to continue during active fire defense and evacuations. This is an example of a self-healing network.





New fiber line planned:

As part of our network evaluation for this project, we identified additional opportunities to fortify the network in the North Coast. We will install additional fiber from Eureka to Trinidad to expand the reach of this redundancy and diversity in Humboldt County. This project is in planning stages and is targeted for completion at the end of 2018.


911 Call Center diversity:

The just-completed upgrades mean that the vast majority of 911 Call Centers in the region are on diverse fiber pathways to protect against outages. The new fiber line, once completed, will bring the last remaining 911 Call Centers in Humboldt and Mendocino Counties onto diverse wire centers with protected fiber pathways.

Reliability Improvements:

Additionally, we have undertaken numerous projects across the region to replace cable and improve outside facilities, which will further improve the reliability
of the network.

These initiatives are part of our ongoing effort to make phased upgrades to our network as
technology continues to evolve. We remain committed to optimizing the AT&T network in the
North Coast with new technologies and increased capacity as they become available.
AT&T continues our effort to keep elected officials and stakeholders across the region engaged
and informed throughout the duration of these upgrades. We will continue to meet with
stakeholders in the coming weeks to answer questions about these improvements and the
additional work planned for the North Coast network.

We look forward to continuing our partnership in the region.

Sep 17, 2016

Once again AT and T is back before the Board of Supervisors

Tuesday meeting agenda item:

AT&T Presentation on Connect America Funds and North Coast Resiliency Plan
(Supervisor Bohn)


Discussion:


"Like telephone service in the 20th Century, broadband has become essential to life in the 21st Century. But,
according to a 2015 Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) Broadband Progress Report, nearly one
in three rural Americans lack access to broadband service, compared to only one in 100 urban Americans.
The Connect America Fund (CAF) is designed to close that rural-urban digital divide. AT&T has chosen to
accept CAF Phase II funding, and representatives from the company will make a presentation regarding its
consideration to utilize these funds in Humboldt County to deploy and offer internet access and voice
services in areas identified by the FCC as "high-cost" areas. There will also be a presentation on the AT&T
North Coast Network Resiliency Plan, regarding local fiber optic resiliency.'