Homes and businesses across the capital, Bakersfield, will have the option to contract high-speed internet service as part of a $400 million fiber-optic system that the Delaware-based company is negotiating with Kern County and the city of Bakersfield.
At no cost to taxpayers, SiFi Networks is proposing to lay a fiber-optic cable along every street in the area, including Fuller Acres, Lamont and Oildale, within four years. The company will sell access to private ISPs who will in turn provide the service to individual customers.
Resident customers will get access to 10 gigabits per second of data for $60 per month, while businesses will have the option to pay $99 per month for internet service at up to 100 gigabits per second, according to a presentation Tuesday by employees to the county board of supervisors.
“Very exciting. It would be great for all of our residents,” Chairman Zack Scrivener said after the moderators voted unanimously to receive and provide information on the proposal.
A vote on whether to enter into a formal development agreement with SiFi is expected next month; This will follow further discussions with the county and city, which could allow construction to begin in the spring.
Fiber-optic infrastructure allows data to move at the speed of light, free from the limitations of traditional broadband. Driven by the growing demand from users of internet-connected devices, it is present in some businesses and organizations but has not been widely available to Kern consumers.
County employees say SiFi’s proposed system could cut costs, boost innovation and bring competition into an industry that was, in some cases, limited to a small group of local service providers.
Speaking in support of the proposal at Tuesday’s meeting, Michael Turnseed, an unlisted East Bakersfield resident, said the SiFi project has the potential to improve service in an area that, by his count, has suffered five major internet outages so far this year, one of which lasted three days.
“We need competition,” Kale said. “A lot of people don’t have the internet. They need to get it.”
SiFi’s vice president of government relations, Sean Parker, said Thursday that the company offers subsidies that make the service available to the poor and disadvantaged for about $30 a month. He noted that this special discount can be combined with federal and state subsidies that lower the cost even more.
The company deploys, or has already built, fiber-optic systems in more than two dozen US cities as far away as the Northeast and near Antelope Valley. At Kern, SiFi will own, maintain and operate the fiber optic system. But if you move away, the infrastructure will belong to the county or the city, depending on where it is located.
Kern’s chief operating officer, James Zervis, told the board of directors on Tuesday that the city and county are cooperating in proposing to come up with uniform design standards.
The general idea is that SiFi will dig “small trenches” along street gutters in the right of public roads, yielding advances of about 2,500 feet per day, Zervis said as part of a slideshow. He added that if a resident or business wanted to contract the service, a line would be connected from the street to the inside of the property.
There will also be at least eight tank-like bunkers built around the metropolitan area to house equipment needed to service the network.
As suggested, the Delaware company will not have exclusive rights to install fiber optics, which means another company could come up with a plan to install its own network alongside SiFi.
