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By Bill Hassell, for the Tillamook County Pioneer
Several years ago, Yvette Clark posted information about fibre on 6, which was an initiative to bring Internet connections to Hwy 6. This would include residential and small businesses, cell towers and emergency service communications along this important highway.
Fibre is the common name for fibre optics cable and Tillamook actually installed fibre cable along the RR tracks some 20 years ago. However, it has only been available for large commercial businesses such as the Creamery and municipal locations like city hall and schools. This was done by Tillamook Light Wave, a group comprised of Tillamook PUD, Tillamook County and the Port of Tillamook Bay.
In the last few months, TLW has been working with NoaNet (a group in Washington State) to help develop the TLW network to connect residential and small businesses to this fibre backbone.
At the same time, Amazon just announced that they are building a fibre cable to connect to an undersea cable and follow 101 and up over Hwy 6 to Hillsboro. They have let TLW know that they will provide residential connections along Hwy 6 and coordinate with cell companies to service multiple cell tower construction along the way.
Here is a summary of the March meeting of TLW with a lot of information and progress reports:
0:01 min on video
Comments from the public:
— TLW website needs the Zoom recordings archived so people can view them
— Would like a new agenda item each month highlighting last mile progress
Commissioners Olson and Yamamoto agreed to put last mile progress on future agendas.
0:03 min on video
Commissioner Yamamoto talked about last mile activities:
He mentioned that he covers some of these milestones in broadcasts on KTIL.
He just had a conversation with Amazon about what TLW would like with their new cable.
He mentioned a cell tower on Hwy 6 would be great but Amazon said they are working with Verizon to construct and provision 9 separate towers. Matt Updenkelder (Astound) confirmed that 9 permits have indeed been approved.
0:56 min on video:
Matt from Astound explained how the original cable build was designed. Two dedicated fibres were run from the TPUD office to each commercial customer. Commercial customers pay a higher rate for 24×7 support but also have their own IT techs to help isolate problems.
However, new technology now allows a single fibre to serve 128 customers. This replaces traditional splice cases where multiple fibres are connected with expensive splicers and optical TDRs to measure the signal for each fibre run. And with the new technology, there is a lot more engineering involved before fibre and equipment can be deployed. The goal is to have plug-n-play equipment in the field that won’t require expert fibre specialists to connect to the home. Additionally, troubleshooting is more complex and requires a lot of work to isolate where a problem exists.
Astound is using current industry standard Passive Optical Networking (PON) technology, with Astound deploying XGPON (10 Gbit) which allows over 1 Gbit up/down speed to homes. Samantha (Astound) explained that this technology will be deployed along hwy 22 to serve multiple homes.
Open Access Fibre was discussed but it has not been very successful and would be a massive interconnect and billing project.
1:23 on video
Chris Walker explained NoaNet Three Rivers Project activities and Omnibus funding for 2023 and 2024. Waiting for status of the FCC 477 filing and Cost Quest data.
Rich Nall discussed the Operating Agreement between Astound and Tillamook Light Wave. NoaNet is evaluating this Operating Agreement. Doug Olson requested some examples of NoaNet PUDs similar to TLW.
1:37 on video
Doug Olson announced the receipt of the withdrawal agreement between TLW and the Port of Tillamook Bay.
Next steps will be TLW legal evaluation then establish the appraisal element.
Doug asked for input from NoaNet and Astound concerning the withdrawal agreement.
Tillamook Light Wave
Tuesday Mar 28 9:30am
Zoom recording:
https://us02web.zoom.us/…/ZDNZVO2YmRUjySq4JxlE8zotRrjxd…
Passcode: +Q2+tsVv
