Policy-Driven Broadband Initiative

About the Program

Category: Community and Economic Development (Best in Category)

Year: 2015

Santa Cruz County has drafted a collection of model policies to encourage fiber broadband proliferation throughout the county. These policies include a “dig once” policy wherein fiber conduit will be installed whenever public rights-of-way are broached, a revision of permitting fees to directly reflect actual county costs, and streamlining the permitting process for fiber infrastructure projects. Our process has invigorated our local ISP companies, resulting in new plans for fiber infrastructure throughout the county. Previously, these companies were locked out of the lucrative broadband-to-home or broadband-to-business markets due to large ISP incumbents’ dominance of the product offerings and service-delivery infrastructure. Because they will now be able to install their own infrastructure, these companies can deliver their products directly to the consumer rather than leasing infrastructure from competitors. Our policies are already being modeled in other communities. We have been recognized by the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development as being on the leading edge of broadband policy-making amongst local governments. The City of Santa Cruz has already replicated the County’s policies and every other jurisdiction within the County intends to follow suit. The goal is to have a standardized process countywide, and our local government partners are all on board. We have also shared our policy-making experience and the resulting policies at two rural broadband conferences in the past 18 months. Prior to our writing policies and procedures to promote broadband, there was no template. Some local jurisdictions had attempted (with some success) to create their own, public fiber networks, but what we sought -- improvements to the local policy ecosystem to encourage private investment in infrastructure -- did not exist. This is paramount: like many small governments, Santa Cruz County does not have the capital to develop a public fiber network for broadband. Through our partnership with businesses we were able to determine the predominant hurdles to fiber deployment within our administrative processes, and to craft design specifications for installation projects. This last piece was critical: prior to our staff’s development of design criteria for broadband installation, there were no common standards. We have since codified best practices from both industry and government and written them into our county code. As far as we’ve been able to determine, this initiative is unique in California; but our experience is not. There are "rural" jurisdictions throughout the state who have no hope of catching the attention of the major Internet service providers, and thus cannot expect to provide broadband to their constituencies. Santa Cruz County has developed a process and policies that can be exported to any local government and used to improve opportunities for local broadband promulgation. We have since made every effort to share our experience and policies with any policy-maker in California who shares our needs.