Internet Options in Nevada County

Complete List of Available Internet Options

List is sorted by relative speed, and type.

• Fiber Internet synchronous
  • AT&T ABF (AT&T Business Fiber) Shared
    SERVICE AREA: Metro
  • AT&T MIS (Managed Internet Service) ATT Dedicated Business Fiber (Available many places, but very expensive) ~$500/month for 10Mbps symmetrical up to 10Gbps
    SERVICE AREA: Most places
  • Vast Networks vastnetworks.com Coverage map
    A middle-mile project that had been funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)
    Not sure about last mile.
  • Race Communications race.com (Zone 1 has been completed)
    SERVICE AREA: On Hwy 174 to Airport in Grass Valley
  • Newtown Fiber? (VAST)
    SERVICE AREA: Newtown rd.
  • Nevada County Fiber (Not built yet) (ATT)
    SERVICE AREA: Banner Mountain
    www.nevcofiber.com/
  • The Northern Sierra Broadband Project (Not built yet) (ATT)
    SERVICE AREA: Buck Mountain Road, Oak Drive, Arianna Court, Mountain View Court, Sunset View Court, and Mountain Park Court, in unincorporated Grass Valley
  • Spiral Fiber (Not built yet) (Vast)
    www.spiral.com/
    SERVICE AREA: north of the Nevada City limits in the Lake Vera Purdon Road and North Bloomfield Road neighborhoods
• Cable Internet
  • Comcast (Xfinity)
    SERVICE AREA: Grass Valley, Nevada City, Penn Valley areas
  • Comcast business
    SERVICE AREA: same as above
  • SuddenLink
    SERVICE AREA: Alta Sierra, parts of south county, Truckee areas
• Fixed Wireless
  • Althea – Thomas spellman – distributed mesh
    Althea signup page althea.net/yubavillagein…
    SERVICE AREA: Outside of Nevada City
  • Digital Path
    SERVICE AREA: Western Nevada County up to 5-Mile House
  • Smarter Broadband
    SERVICE AREA: Some parts of Western Nevada County
  • Succeend.net
    SERVICE AREA: (Lake Wildwood?)
  • exwire.com
    SERVICE AREA: (Truckee?)
  • colfax.net 
    SERVICE AREA: Colfax & parts of Hwy 174 area to Grass Valley
  • goskywest.com
    SERVICE AREA: Lime Kiln, McCourntney, Wolf Rd., and in south Alta Sierra, Golden Oaks, the Cottage Hill area off Running M, Lake of the Pines and the Ranchos.
• Low Earth Orbit Satellite Internet
  • Starlink (accepting beta testers) Current round is sold out.
• 5G Cellular Internet (Not really available yet in our area)
  • AT&T
  • T-Mobile
  • Verizon
• 4G & LTE Cellular Internet Hotspot
  • Verizon
  • AT&T
  • T-mobile
  • Oasisbroadband? (Resells ATT and T-mobile)
  • or third party resellers of the above networks…  Check out all your options here:
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li…
• DSL (aDSL) or U-verse (aDSL2+ or vDSL)
  • Third party ATT resellers
    • Omsoft in Davis (Subcontracts to SonicNet)
      SERVICE AREA: Grass Valley, Nevada City, Penn Valley, and Truckee areas
      No data limits
  • AT&T DSL
    • Copper from the main office (No longer available from ATT in many places)
  • AT&T Internet – U-verse (aDSL2+)
    • Digital Pair Gain from a fiber connected terminal 
• Geosynchronous Orbit Satellite Internet
  (!low on list because of High Latency realtime interaction is delayed)
  • Viasat (aka Exede aka Wildblue)
  • Hughsnet
  • VSAT – www.skycasters.com/
• 3G Cellular Internet Hotspot (Average 600Kbps – 1.4 Mbps and up to 3.1 Mbps)
  ATTENTION: All carriers are disabling 3G within the next year.
  • Verizon,
  • AT&T,
  • T-mobile,
  • or third party resellers…
• ISDN – Integrated Services Digital Network
  Not sure this still exists…
• 56K Modem over AT&T phone line
  • other third party
  • ATT

Low income Internet programs:

• Comcast – www.internetessentials.c… $10/month
• ATT- accessatt.solixcs.com/#/… $5-$10/month
• Suddenlink – www.alticeadvantageinter… $15/month
• Cellular Human-I-T hitconnect.org/sales/buy… $15/month

New $50 discount arstechnica.com/tech-pol…

Low-Income Internet Service Providers

California coverage map: www.broadbandmap.ca.gov/
Federal coverage map: broadbandmap.fcc.gov/.
(Hopefully, this should be more accurate by the end of Summer 2020: www.benton.org/blog/cong…)

Background

Many in Nevada County live outside the city centers. Combined with the varied terrain, and heavy forests. This makes finding a reliable and fast internet connection sometimes exceedingly difficult.

Broadband internet is currently defined by the FCC as 20Mbps down and 3Mbps up with latency of less than 100ms. More recently it has been mentioned by California as 25Mbps down and 25Mbps up with latency  suitable for real time interaction.

Only Fiber and Cable offer upload speeds that high. Fixed wireless, and occasionally 4G LTE Cellular can offer adequate download speeds. If possible, Fiber and Cable are the top choices for speed and reliability. There are many areas in Nevada County that do not have any internet options or can only access internet over unreliable high latency satellite, cellular or wireless connections. This is a huge issue. Part of the problem is that many ISPs (Internet Service Providers) are misreporting areas served. Or, reporting that they serve the whole block if they serve a single house within the block. Also, many ISPs try to block new companies or municipalities from serving these misreported areas. As well as cause problems for new ISPs getting grants.

gizmodo.com/new-report-s…

There are currently many grants, and bills in the works to expand broadband into rural areas like Nevada County. Much of this is overseen by The California Public Utilites Commision (CPUC): www.cpuc.ca.gov/Communic…
Using the California Coverage Map, you can see which areas are supposedly served, and what speeds you should get. You can also see which areas are eligible for two of these grant programs; the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) Infrastructure Grant, and the Connect America Fund Phase II. The CASF has a local presence through the Sierra Business Council called the Gold Country Broadband Consortium. Nevada County has a page with some of the projects they have worked on regarding to broadband
here: www.mynevadacounty.com/1….

The rural digital opportunity fund is also in the works. There are may be some more grants coming with this bill too:
www.engadget.com/house-a…
More recently there have been a bunch of reverse auctions by the FCC to disburse grant funds. The newest round of rural broadband grant winners interactive map: experience.arcgis.com/ex…

Some info from: www.nevadacountyconnecte…

Here is a spreadsheet of the above data: docs.google.com/spreadsh…

More Reading

Also check out this www.nevadacountyconnecte….

More reading: thesungazette.com/articl…

Get Involved!

Internet for All

www.internetforallnow.or…

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