HCAN

Humboldt Community Access Network (HCAN) and HoopaNet
public benefit broadband projects

Access Humboldt launched the Digital Redwoods initiative (http://digitalredwoods.net) in 2007 to advance the deployment and adoption of community broadband and media access across the Redwood Coast region of California. Digital Redwoods was awarded "Community Broadband Wireless Network of the Year" for 2009 by the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisers (natoa.org).

Early in 2010, local governments including County of Humboldt and Cities of Eureka, Arcata and Fortuna unanimously adopted resolutions endorsing Digital Redwoods and supporting regional broadband stimulus and media access for least served communities. The Headwaters Fund subsequently approved a grant to the City of Eureka to support applications for ARRA broadband stimulus funding. Access Humboldt agreed to manage the work and guarantee the applications would be completed.

On behalf of local public education and government interests, Access Humboldt applied for three and a half million dollars of Comprehensive Community Infrastructure (BTOP) funding to develop Humboldt Community Access Network (HCAN) wireless network assets from Benbow to Orick and Orleans. Access Humboldt also supported the Hoopa Valley Tribe application for Broadband Intiative Program funds (BIP) funding to build HoopaNet last mile networks in Hoopa Valley and Orleans (Panamnik).

Here is information about Humboldt Community Access Network (HCAN)

Humboldt Community Access Network
Executive summary
(CCI/BTOP application to NTIA, March 2010)

The Humboldt Community Access Network (HumboldtCAN) microwave middle-mile network
will connect 31 community anchors (and more than 200 in the future) throughout the remote,
mountainous and largely underserved Humboldt County, California, with particular emphasis on
improving public safety functions, promoting educational opportunities, and serving the
County’s significant population of economically disadvantaged Native American residents.

The network truly embodies the spirit and the purpose of the Recovery Act in general, and BTOP
comprehensive community infrastructure projects in particular: It will create jobs, promote
economic development and educational achievement, and bring broadband access to vulnerable
populations and underserved tribal lands. It will encompass creative public-private partnerships
and enable private last-mile providers to deliver service to currently unserved residents.

Ultimately, given Humboldt County’s remote location, general lack of infrastructure, and high
level of poverty (almost 20%, per recent Census statistics), this project will provide broadband
access to community anchors that almost certainly would remain unserved by the private sector.

Microwave Conquers Geography
The HumboldtCAN microwave middle-mile infrastructure was designed in a cost-effective way
that recognizes not only the prohibitive expense of building fiber in these mountainous rural
areas (and over such long distances), but also the very real drawbacks of constructing fiber over
this terrain.

With one fiber line running north to south through the County and terminating in the town of
Eureka, local governments and residents know the pitfalls of single-route fiber; when the fiber is
inadvertently cut south of the area, communications shut down. Fiber cuts are potentially
avoidable, however—while the County’s weather and terrain are not. Many of the County’s
mountainous roads are closed for the winter, and mudslides in warmer weather often bring dow
terrestrial communications infrastructure.

The project’s wireless architecture and overall technology strategy address these geography-
specific limitations and establish a resilient, survivable infrastructure for the service area—and in
the process, create a critical public safety tool for a region that is at significant risk of natural
disasters.

Public Safety Focus
HumboldtCAN is partially a public safety network that will rectify the County’s perilous lack of
survivable communications infrastructure. The County's Sheriff, which houses the County’s
Office of Emergency Services, is a strong advocate of the project, because its leadership
recognizes the day-to-day benefits of having a robust wireless network that would enable fixed
and mobile communications to even the remote corners of its service area.

Beyond those day-to-day needs, the County faces a critical public safety need for broadband. The
County is located in one of the most hazardous earthquake zones in the country. Its disaster plan
has determined that more than a dozen areas of the County could be cut off by a large-magnitude
natural event. In such a scenario, those communities would become islands—and communication
assets would take on a critical role.

Humboldt County’s annual fire season, while not on the magnitude of a major earthquake, is a
regular event that starkly illustrates the need for more robust and resilient broadband
communications for public safety. The County has 32 fire districts, including remote volunteer
fire stations. Each year, fire patrol camps—mini towns, really—spring up in staging areas near
fire hot spots. Broadband connectivity for the command centers is essential, but sorely lacking.
In the town of Orleans, when the last major fire event doubled the population with firefighters,
the fire service paid a carrier to bring in a portable cellular tower for emergency
communications. Once the fire was out and the firefighters decamped, so did the carrier and its
portable tower.

The fire season highlights another truth: Every community anchor and public facility across the
County—from schools and libraries to community centers and government buildings—could
conceivably become a disaster response and recovery facility during an emergency. Each of
these facilities, then, needs communications infrastructure that meets not just its day-to-day
needs, but is capable of reliably supporting emergency communications functions.

In a similar vein, HumboldtCAN’s middle-mile broadband connection to the district’s
community college, College of the Redwoods, serves not just an educational goal, but a public
safety mission. For volunteer firefighters in remote fire patrol camps, regular training is
essential—but the firefighters cannot generally leave their posts for the days it would take to
drive to a distant training center. With videoconferencing, however, College of the Redwoods
could deliver its training curriculum to distant facilities—allowing firefighters to receive the
training they need while protecting their communities.

Another public safety aspect of HumboldtCAN’s middle-mile network is the provision of high-
bandwidth transport service for local media (radio, broadcast TV, public-access cable TV). With
the digital television transition last year, many Humboldt County residents lost access to local
media; without it, they have no way of receiving emergency alert messages. HumboldtCAN will
ensure that all residents can receive instructions and information during an emergency.

Serving Native American and Other Vulnerable Residents
HumboldtCAN will provide the myriad benefits of high-speed middle-mile capacity to key
community anchors that have expressed significant commitment to the project, including a range
of tribal entities such as the Wiyot, Hoopa, Karuk, and Yurok Tribes.

Beyond its public safety focus, the HumboldtCAN project was conceived to connect community
anchors that provide services to Native American residents, including tribal government
buildings, social service agencies, libraries, public computer centers, community colleges, and
other entities.

With unemployment and poverty rates significantly higher than the national average, Native
Americans are a truly vulnerable population. Humboldt County is home to more Native
American groups than virtually any other County in the country. Significantly, HumboldtCAN
will provide middle-mile connectivity to United Indian Health Services’ rural clinics, replacing
their current low-bandwidth lines with a dedicated point-to-point connection that will lower their
costs while providing more reliable communications.

Project Management
HumboldtCAN will be constructed and managed by Access Humboldt, a local non-profit with a
significant history of championing technology for educational and civic purposes. Access
Humboldt represents all of the County’s local communities. Its core mission is to support the
public interest, and it has long pursued initiatives to expand broadband access for underserved
communities (including the 60% of Humboldt County that is unserved), and of partnering with
public and private entities in innovative and creative ways to meet those goals.

A current Access Humboldt project, for example, is Digital Rio Dell, which brought together
public and private partners to offer free public Wi-Fi in the small, rural city of Rio Dell. Access
Humboldt was able to secure cost-effective bandwidth and backbone Internet access; donated
equipment; and low-cost maintenance services. As a result, operating costs for this robust,
locally owned and operated community broadband network are sustainable through local
donations.

HumboldtCAN will extend this model. It will include a creative public-private partnership—
based on joint activities Access Humboldt has cultivated over many years—with a very
successful locally owned wireless ISP. The private company, 101Netlink, is committed to
leveraging the grant-funded middle-mile infrastructure to cost-effectively invest in its own,
private last-mile infrastructure to serve many of the County’s unserved residents and businesses.

Other private sector partners have contributed to the process, as well. Carlson Wireless
Technologies, a local communications equipment manufacturer that has been a longtime donor
of hardware to support connectivity for unserved and underserved communities, donated
significant design and planning services and preparation for this project.

The public-private partnership aspects of the HumboldtCAN project will not only expand the
network reach and its impact on the lives of unserved and underserved residents and of
community anchors, but also will contribute to the network’s sustainability and low operating
costs by enabling sharing of existing and new infrastructure costs.

HumboldtCAN infrastructure will cost $5,293,066. Significantly, it is expected to save or create
37 direct and indirect jobs. Seventy percent (70%) of the funds are requested from ARRA (BTOP/CCI) and thirty percent (30%) are requested from California Advanced Services Fund (CASF).

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Support letters and inquiries can be addressed to:

Sean McLaughlin
Executive Director
Access Humboldt
P.O. Box 157
Eureka, CA 95502

tel: 707-476-1798
fax: 707-476-1702
DC: 202-495-0616
e: sean@accesshumboldt.net
http://accesshumboldt.net
http://digitalredwoods.net