[RTC List] Broadband and Telecomm in Willow Creek

[jym at att.blackberry.net]

Dwight

Yes, I share many of your concerns.  Trinity has been part of the redwood CC for awhile and we have a project in the pipeline along Hwy 36.  

I'm happy to further discuss Hwy 299 as well.
Perhaps we can chat later in the week.   I'm not aware of any recent projects focusing on Hwy 299 east of Willow Creek.  

Happy to chat when you have a moment.

Supervisor J. Morris
Trinity County

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

-----Original Message-----
From: Dwight Winegar <dwightw at mac.com>
Sender: list-bounces at redwoodtech.org
Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2011 14:29:12 
To: <list at redwoodtech.org>
Subject: [RTC List] Broadband and Telecomm in Willow Creek


I decided to take this to the list to see if anyone here has any more information than I've been able to obtain.  However, in working on starting up a new Western Trinity Valley Grange chapter in the Willow Creek area, spending a couple days a week out there, and California State Grange Broadband Committee chair I've been incensed about some of the things I've been witnessing first hand; - enough so I'm prepared to take "action."

It's more than just having "high speed internet" - the issues go far beyond that out there.  For example there was a local cable company that came in out there a year or two ago, went bankrupt or could not do fulfillment and left people just hanging high-and-dry.  Verizon which is still the landline service (and there are still many people out that way; not just in Trinity County) has DSL capability at their CO that are lucky if they even have a landline but has never bothered to hook up any nodes more than about a a block away - so that homes or businesses say 3 blocks away have no timeline if EVER they will extend the service just that small distance!   The satellite carriers, that are high priced, have yet to keep the promise of adding any local stations.

Finally I got a call over the weekend that was verified by an engineer from one of our stations that while they HAD analog translators serving the area out there (which under the Federal guidelines for Digital Conversion did NOT have to go digital) have either been damaged and will not be fixed, or just be removed.  Can you say "bad to worse; we had some local communications and now it is gone?"    Finally, it is said that a new Wireless provider will be providing new Internet service in the next month, but we are also finding that due to line-of-sight, there may be more limitations to that than what people had been hoping for.  Meanwhile many of these people are LOW INCOME out there and could not afford the costs of living in Arcata or Eureka - one of the reasons the HTA shuttle is so popular.  Hoopa appears to be getting some major improvements soon, largely due to the Tribe, but this is specific to the Hoopa Valley and not up in Willow Creek, and of course, I won't even me
 ntion Trinity County - except that Trinity is at least part of OUR [coastal] Broadband Consortium, rather than the NE or Upstate Broadband Consortiums.

Should we just say "too bad"?   No, I find that other than West Virginia, MOST rural areas of the country take much of our broadband and telecomm solutions for granted (already) at this point.  This was evident when speaking with fellow Grangers at a National Grange sponsored event this weekend in Oregon.

BTW - I also recently heard that when many low income Willow Creek residents, including those living in rentals applied for PG&E energy partners to come out and make their accommodations more energy efficient and insulated for the Winter, they have been put off twice being told "we don't want our crews to risk black-ice conditions on SR 299."

- Dwight
_______________________________________________
List mailing list
List at redwoodtech.org
http://redwoodtech.org/mailman/listinfo/list_redwoodtech.org