The difficulty of obtaining reliable or affordable internet service has prompted the Bolinas Community Public Utility District to form a committee charged with investigating new options. During a meeting on Saturday, the committee met with representatives of three internet service providers, one of which the utility district might decide to partner with on a grant application to the California Public Utilities Commission.
Until this year, the C.P.U.C. was doling out funds to rural communities seeking to improve internet services, and the Bolinas committee says if any of the grant awardees didn’t use the funds, their town could stand to benefit.
Over the last few years, residents have pled with AT&T to increase the dependability of service. AT&T has a control center at the firehouse from which it offers wireless and D.S.L. service, which relies on cables. Besides AT&T, a satellite company serves some residents. But AT&T services can be expensive, residents say, and satellite services depend on location and don’t necessarily offer a fast
connection.
Matthew Cross, a spokesperson for AT&T, said the company was refusing service to new users in Bolinas for a “short period” in 2015 but that the company has since built more bandwidth into the central office.
“Currently, AT&T offers D.S.L. to customers in Bolinas who request new service as long as the customer’s location is within the required distance from a central office,” he said.
Yet Lyndon Comstock, a Bolinas Community Public Utility District board director and the chair of the committee, questioned that. “What I’ve been hearing from community members is that AT&T is saying they’re out of capacity,” he said. According to him, the internet committee was triggered by one resident’s request in November for the district to take a more proactive position on internet services.
The effort to improve services in Bolinas comes after a federal court in Washington, D.C. ruled in June that high-speed internet service is to be defined as a utility, not a luxury. It also comes as nearby Nicasio is installing high-speed internet supporting 220 homes and ranches thanks to a collaboration between the county, the Nicasio Land Owners Association and Inyo Networks, a telecommunications company based in San Bernardino County. The majority of the project was funded through a grant from the C.P.U.C.
Though the utility commission’s grant program was not refunded for 2017, Mr. Comstock hopes that money from last year’s pool could become available.
“If it turns out that any money in the 2016 pot becomes available because a project didn’t happen, we’ll undoubtedly have a short window to go after that money,” he said.
To become eligible, BCPUD would need to partner with a licensed internet service provider that could back the application. All three companies that sent representatives to Saturday’s meeting—Inyo Networks, Horizon Cable and Tomales Bay LAN—expressed potential
interest.
Leila Monroe, co-owner of Smiley’s Schooner Saloon, said her establishment’s unreliable internet leads to the loss of information from credit card transactions and complaints from hotel guests.
“AT&T is not willing to give us any additional cable,” she said. Since taking over Smiley’s two years ago, Ms. Monroe said she’s asked AT&T to install extra lines to boost bandwidth, but that she’s only been offered extra WiFi routers. She said the system still doesn’t function reliably. “There’s only so much we can do without the infrastructure to support it,” she said.
Ian Johnson, a Bolinas-based technology specialist who regularly assists the Bolinas Fire Protection District, said most residents are “out of luck” when it comes to connecting online unless a home has a solid view angle for satellites or is in the direct line of sight for Muir Beach, where the community built a robust local area network a few years ago.
AT&T service is also available, but at a cost. “If you have a lot of money, AT&T is happy to provide commercial-grade service,” Mr. Johnson said. “It’s not that it isn’t available here, it’s just that most people can’t pay $600 a month for an internet connection.”
Last year, Paul Helzer purchased a new home in town and was quickly stymied when trying to assume the same AT&T setup the previous tenant had contracted with the company. After he made an accidental lapse in payment, he said AT&T cancelled his home number and internet service without any notice. He said he could not get a new account.
“They don’t directly tell you,” he said of AT&T. “The sales team will tell you anything you want to hear, but then the reality sets in.” Mr. Helzer now relies on satellite internet for which he pays $100 a month. He called the service “very slow.”
Kris Backenstose, who owns Point Reyes Station company MaximumITSM, is one of the volunteer committee’s four members. He acknowledges the issues they’ll encounter when dealing with the telecommunication company.
“I see it as an uphill battle against AT&T. I think they’re very strategic about the federal money they receive,” he said. “It has been a while but I remember seeing that AT&T was either refusing to use or just plain pocketing the federal funds intended to roll out high-speed internet for rural areas [through the Connect America Fund administered by the Federal Communications Commission]. It was about a couple years ago [but] why the hell hasn’t AT&T upgraded [the D.S.L.] in Bolinas to a very high bit-rate digital subscriber line?”
For Mr. Comstock, part of the blame lies with the C.P.U.C., which is designed to protect consumers and ensure reliable utility services and infrastructure.
“This is the kind of thing they’re supposed to regulate,” he said. “This is their job to get these public utilities to provide service to their service areas.”
A spokeswoman for the C.P.U.C. did not respond to specific questions before deadline.
For Mr. Comstock, the trouble with AT&T threatens Bolinas’s ability to effectively function in the 21st century. “[This is] definitely a public utility issue,” he said. “The problem is that AT&T is a public utility and they have a virtual monopoly in a place like Bolinas. They own the copper wires and the landline infrastructure. The only other alternative is satellite, but that has issues and isn’t very effective.”
For now, the committee will continue to research options and then present its findings to the BCPUD board. “Then we’ll a make big push to [update] the community,” Mr. Comstock said.