santa cruz

Santa Cruz gets more fiber, more gigabit service

19 May 2018 by Steve Blum
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AT&T’s recent fiber to the home (FTTH) upgrades in Santa Cruz mean that Cruzio isn’t the only Internet service provider bringing gigabit class infrastructure into town (unless you have a sneaking suspicion that it’s a competitive response – in that case you can thank Cruzio for it too). U.C. Santa Cruz’s Jim Warner tracked it down…

AT&T has been working on an FTTH deployment in parts of west Santa Cruz. The work has progressed to the point where some addresses are showing availability of gigabit service in AT&T’s on-line service availability tool.

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Santa Cruz fights fire with fiber

26 October 2017 by Steve Blum
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As a wild fire burned in the Santa Cruz mountains, a key AT&T fiber line was cut nearby, reportedly by a road maintenance crew doing previously scheduled work just before 5:00 a.m. on Tuesday of last week.

In 2009, a break in a different AT&T cable effectively knocked Santa Cruz, Watsonville and most of the rest of the county off of the Internet for most of a day. Since then, AT&T, Comcast and independent broadband companies have upgraded and diversified cable routes running north and south.… More

Santa Cruz tech rolls out at CES

15 January 2017 by Steve Blum
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Plantronic’s Esther Yoon demos the Backbeat Fit at CES.

Two Santa Cruz companies were among the thousands of exhibitors at the Consumer Electronics Show, which wrapped up in Las Vegas last weekend – one industry veteran, Plantronics, and one start up, Future Motion, which is just hitting its stride. Both were on hand at Pepcom’s media showcase.

Future Motion introduced the Onewheel+, the latest version of a motorised balance beam skateboard with, naturally, just one wheel.… More

Google adopts Santa Cruz muni fiber model in Huntsville

29 February 2016 by Steve Blum
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The City of Huntsville, Alabama is following Santa Cruz’s fiber lead: building a fiber to the home (and business) network and leasing it out to a private operator. In Huntsville’s case the private operator is Google Fiber, while in Santa Cruz the partner is a local independent Internet service provider, Cruzio.

The lead consultants on the Huntsville project – CTC Technology and Energy – applied the lessons they learned working for the City of Santa Cruz…

The partnership model announcement today between Huntsville and Google Fiber is on the model of that pioneered by Westminster, Maryland in 2014 and by Santa Cruz, California last year…

This innovative, shared-risk partnership model puts the locality in the business of building infrastructure, a business it knows well after a century of building roads, bridges, and utilities.

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Santa Cruz fiber love becomes serious city business

10 December 2015 by Steve Blum
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It’s a love fest, several Santa Cruz city council members declared on Wednesday afternoon, as they unanimously approved 1. moving ahead with negotiating a fiber to the home partnership with Cruzio, a local independent Internet service provider, and 2. pursue lease revenue bonds to pay the lions share of the tab. That city-financed portion – Layer 1 in Internet lingo – could go as high as $50 million. The core network – the fiber in the ground – is pegged at about $35 million.… More

Santa Cruz city council unanimously approves muni FTTH

8 December 2015 by Steve Blum
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The vote was seven to nothing, as the Santa Cruz city council moved ahead this afternoon with a plan to build a city-owned dark fiber network that will reach every home and business in town. Under the current plan, the system will be leased to Cruzio, a local independent Internet service provider. Cruzio will light the fiber – buy and maintain the electronics, and provision the Internet bandwidth – and run the business. The cost to the city is in the $30 million range.… More

Santa Cruz city council considers FTTH business plan and market data today

8 December 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for more market research data.

A business model and an outline of a deal to build a fiber to the home (and business) system in Santa Cruz will be on the table at this afternoon’s city council meeting. In June, the Santa Cruz council authorised city staff to negotiate a public/private partnership agreement with Cruzio, a local Internet service provider. The basic terms are now ready for review. The concept is for the City to pay for and own the fiber, and lease it to Cruzio.… More

Comcast exec says yeah, competitition made us do it

15 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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The only sure way to respond to a threat.

Comcast has a habit of upgrading and extending its infrastructure when the threat of competition raises its beautiful head. That’s a deliberate strategy, and not a coincidence, according to a Comcast executive quoted by FierceTelecom…

Speaking to attendees during the opening afternoon sessions during SCTE 2015, Jorge Salinger, VP of access for Comcast, said that the cable industry’s development of the DOCSIS 3.1 specification has come together very quickly and is being driven by an emergence of new broadband competition from Google Fiber and telcos like AT&T and CenturyLink.

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Santa Cruz muni fiber threat forces Comcast upgrade

28 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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After years of blowing off customers, sandbagging local governments and stonewalling regulators, Comcast has finally upgraded its Santa Cruz County service area to what appears to be the same broadband speeds enjoyed to the north in Silicon Valley and to the south in Monterey County. All it took was a single word: competition.

Comcast hasn’t said so, but it’s no coincidence that the upgrade came barely six weeks after the Santa Cruz City Council voted to move ahead with building a city-wide fiber-to-the-home (and business) system in a public/private partnership with Cruzio, a local Internet service provider.… More

Santa Cruz rail offers a dig once chance for broadband

5 July 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click to see the big version.

Another broadband opportunity in Santa Cruz is opening up. The county Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) is offering the use of its 32-mile railroad right of way to interested utility companies, including broadband and telecommunications service providers.

The route runs more or less near the coastline along the length of the county, from Watsonville to Davenport, going through the cities of Capitola and Santa Cruz. About half the population of Santa Cruz County lives within a mile of the right of way.… More