Race Telecommunications of San Francisco has applied for many State grants to develop internet in underserved areas. The Public Utilities Commission will vote to possibly approve a $4.65 million grant to the company to build broadband in Crowley, Aspen Springs, Sunny Slopes and Chalfant.
A draft resolution will go before the Commission on June 26th. If approved, the resolution would forward Race Telecommunication’s grant application from the California Advanced Services Fund for $4,650,593 for what’s called the Mono County Underserved Broadband Project.
The Draft Resolution says that the project would extend high speed internet service to 2.8 square miles covering Aspen Springs, Chalfant, Crowley Lake and Sunny Slopes in Mono County. The grant would come from a fund established by the PUC to help unserved and underserved areas of California. In 2010, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill that set up the fund.
Race Telecommunications has agreed to a two-year pricing plan for the small Mono County communities. Depending on download and upload speeds, monthly prices range from $25 to $150 for residential service and $60 to $200 for business service. The Draft Resolution says these prices are lower than Race’s metropolitan price structure.
Public comments can be submitted on this project by June 11th. Check out Draft Resolution and how to comment here:
http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/SearchRes.aspx?docformat=ALL&DocID=91697361
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It’s amazing how kids are growing up with all the electronic stuff, but an’t figure out how to turn a light off.
Trouble- Don’t forget the adults who still can’t spell or write a complete sentence.
Trouble….Reason for that is probably spending too much time….maybe ALL their time on the computer…in their parents basement….finding websites to sign the petitions trying to get pot legalized instead of going to school and/or looking for a job.
Meanwhile in Starlite, which, contrary to some opinions, is not an elitist, wealthy community, we are limited to satellite internet connection. Digital 395 didn’t make it up the hill, so we’re unable to take advantage of cost-saving bundling. Crowley & Lee Vining (as many homes as Starlite?) will have digital/non-satellite connection, but Starlite won’t.
Love that photo of Crow. It reminds me of the movie “High Plains Drifter”
(the current internet is from about that same era…Hah!)
schat has been promising higher speed for some time now but it has not happened yet – I guess I should be happy that is works at all – kinda funny but not, I call in a complaint (or email) and sometimes I get a response, sometimes I don’t, but the best was when the response came several months later after I sent a second email threatening to cancel service – they ain’t the only game in town anymore and I think they really, really need to keep their customers informed of what is happening and why we we have nothing more than the words – just checked, the latest news is high speeds summer of 2014! (yawn – and how many times did the boy cry wolf?)
Please someone bring high speed internet to Lee Vining!!
Maybe Suddenlink? Why were millions spent on Digital 395 if no
one hooks up to it?
Lee Vining is currently serviced by Schat.net, and it’s relatively high-speed (up to 2Mbps). What people don’t seem to understand is how expensive it can be to bring broadband to outlying areas with a small customer base. Verizon and Suddenlink don’t do it because it’s not profitable. Schat.net now has to compete with an outside company that just received almost 5million to serve the same areas they have been serving for years. It’s unfortunate, because Schat.net, while not perfect, is a small, local company that puts money back into the community. Why anyone would want to use a corporate service like Verizon, with horrible customer service, is beyond me.
Internet marketing speed claims are a scam. In my years with Schatnet in Lee Vining;
the internet speed averages 500k or less. Once more: why spend millions of dollars to
get high speed internet to rural areas if no one is willing or able to connect to it?
Support your local business or lose the small town uniqueness that small business brings a community.
If there was a Wal Mart & Home Depot in Bishop every single small business would eventually dry up and disappear and Bishop would become just like any other town in the U.S.A.
Those of you that don’t get it, deserve what comes next.
Bob: there is some truth in what you say. And not too long ago, it was more true. But today big business rules the sources of all the things that small businesses used to sell and force small businesses to struggle for product.
Look around Bishop — Vons, KMart, McDonalds and the rest of the fast food, Ace Hardware, Starbucks, Motel6, the gas stations, etc. These are not small businesses and the struggling, low wage worker doesn’t have the luxury of going to boutique stores for their needs.
A WalMart would help a lot of people do more with their money. I don’t like it either but such is the World and there is no going back to the ’60’s.
Anything that can make money and provide a fair return on investment is done by private business.
Digital 395 wasn’t a money maker for private business so it was built with taxpayer money.
It’s basically welfare internet.
Bob, I guess that means the Interstate Highway system consists of welfare roads too.
Bob, you have electricity because of what you call “welfare”. There is nowhere in the world where the cost of installing and maintaining the infrastucture to provide electrical power to your home is fully paid for by rates. What happens is a combination of tax money and the higher rates paid by commercial customers pays for homes to have electrical power. Big commercial users, something like a Walmart or a big distribution warehouse, require very little infrastructure in comparison to the amount of electricity they consume. These users provide the revenues for utilities to afford to provide electicity to private homes.
in addition, all these small communities in the eastern Sierra and Mojave Desert would not have any sort of utilities were it not for state and Federal grants paying for them to be connected to the grid or a gas pipeline. These communities are simply too small to generate enough revenue to pay the high cost of running power and gas lines to them. Instead, because your brothers and sisters in the big cities don’t want to see all of us do without, they suck up the cost of paying for us to have such big city amenities as electricity and natural gas. The same is true of high speed internet, which is increasingly viewed as a public utility like water ane electricity.
So go flip on a light, sit down at your keyboard and enjoy being subsidized by the rest of the nation.
Competition can be a great motivator. It sounds like Schat.net has a decision to make. Do they want to be in the high speed internet business or the restaurant business?
It is high time that Schat.net gets their customers hooked up to Digital 395!
I think you need to know a bit about Schats.net’s challenges/network before bagging on them.
I’m pretty sure they provide service to folks that have no other option other then satellite due to their location.
btw, I know nothing 😉 I’m just for the small guy especially when they’re local.
Digital 395 is a backbone. Schat is connected to it. I know that Schat.net has gone through great expense in upgrading it’s system over the years, especially in under served areas. I feel we need to support our local businesses.
While I certainly agree we should support our local businesses, according to the link provided in this story Schat needed to submit an application for CASF funding by February 1, 2013. Race did so. Both Verizon and SuddenLink then submitted challenges to the Race application, but Schat did not. We can hardly support our local businesses if they don’t support us. Why Schat didn’t apply or contest Race’s application would be a good story for the Wave to follow up on.
When did competition in business come to mean lawyering up to try to prevent your competitor from entering the market you compete in? How about competing on products and service? Maybe Schat is of the opinion that such efforts are a waste of time and scarce revenues? Or maybe they feel they can compete without lawyering up and whining to a court.
Several years ago when new emissions regulations were being applied to the diesel engines of big over the road trucks, both Caterpillar and Detroit (now Mercedes Benz) wasted a lot of time and money challenging the new regulations in court. Cummins Engine Company, meanwhile, showed their competitors that it was indeed possible to build engines that met tne new standards and proceded to market them successfully, effectively ending the possibility of Cummins’ competitors prevailing in court.