A local internet provider is hoping to interrupt an effort by a large southern California provider to install high-speed service in Bolinas, a project that could nab state funding and has the support of the Bolinas Community Public Utility District.
Horizon Cable was in the process of acquiring permits to extend its service from Stinson Beach to Bolinas when it learned about a grant application filed by Inyo Networks, Inc. to fund a project that would provide fiber optic internet to over 580 dwellings and community service buildings in the
village.
Kevin Daniel, Horizon’s president, filed a confidential objection with the California Public Utilities Commission in December in hopes of halting Inyo’s efforts.
Mr. Daniel said it was essential to the welfare of his small business that he block Inyo from receiving the grant.
Horizon had filed an application with the utilities commission in September to expand its service area. Currently the Point Reyes Station-based company serves around 1,400 customers across Point Reyes Station, Inverness, Inverness Park, Olema, Dillon Beach and Stinson Beach. (The Light and Horizon also trade advertising and internet
service.)
Inyo Networks is no stranger to West Marin. The company is in the midst of building out a fiber optic broadband system in Nicasio that was largely funded by a grant from the state utility commission’s California Advanced Services Fund, which is set aside for internet projects in underserved communities.
Bolinas is on the commission’s list of underserved communities, and Inyo has been working with the Bolinas Community Public Utility District for months to craft a grant proposal for the town. Their project—worth over $3 million—proposes a network that would connected Bolinas to Nicasio’s fiber optic system.
But for his part, Mr. Daniel said he’s been working hard for the last two and a half years to connect his company’s existing service in Seadrift to Wharf Road through a bore that would run underneath the Bolinas Lagoon.
“It was kind of a punch in the stomach after all the work we’ve been trying to do,” said Mr. Daniel, who lives in Fairfax. “I have a big investment in this and I felt like I needed to protect that. It will essentially crush a private businessman like myself, and I just can’t compete.”
Mr. Daniel said he’s spent about $50,000 of his own money to fund the biological assessments and archaeological studies required for conducting a project in the lagoon. He’s working on obtaining various permits from agencies such as the California Coastal Commission and Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, and said he expects to have the necessary permits from the Army Corps of Engineers by the end of the year.
(A spokesperson for the corps said Mr. Daniel is in the process of completing the agency’s Endangered Species Act, National Historic Preservation Act and tribal consultations.)
But members of the Bolinas utility district are skeptical that the project could ever reach fruition. Lyndon Comstock, a member of the BCPUD board and the chair of its internet access subcommittee, said the project had “daunting, dubious prospects.”
Last year, Mr. Daniel and a representative from Inyo attended meetings of the internet access subcommittee. At the time, Mr. Comstock said he had hoped the companies could collaborate to bring broadband to Bolinas, and even involve another local internet provider, Muir Beach LAN.
When Mr. Daniel detailed his plan to run a bore under the lagoon at one meeting in the winter, Mr. Comstock expressed concern about how long it would take to permit the project. Conversations between the subcommittee and Horizon soon fizzled.
“There are definitely challenges and they make you go through several hoops, but it’s nothing insurmountable,” Mr. Daniel recently said of his plans. “As this project keeps going, I’m losing support, but it’s worth doing.”
Time was also a critical factor for the Bolinas utility district. The California Public Utilities Commission announced last year that it was discontinuing the California Advanced Services Fund. Inyo, which has already had success in securing that funding, “stepped up,” Mr. Comstock said.
In December, the company applied for a grant worth over $1.8 million.
At last month’s Bolinas utility district meeting, a representative from Inyo explained that the company was surprised to learn of Horizon’s objection.
“We didn’t expect anyone would come in with that kind of objection, [and] Horizon Cable apparently has,” Robert Volker, secretary of Inyo Networks, told the board. “Although it’s a little confusing, because we haven’t been able to find any place inside the Bolinas service area where they’re currently serving.”
In response to the objection, the board sent a letter to the utilities commission that voices support for Inyo’s project. The letter expressed doubt about Horizon’s plan to install a line under the lagoon, listing 10 permitting agencies that have jurisdiction over the lagoon and suggesting that the time needed to obtain permits would not result in broadband for Bolinas within a “reasonable” period of time.
“My hope is the C.P.U.C. staff sees it for what it is, in my opinion—that Horizon is worried about another competitor,” Mr. Comstock said. “All I can say is, ‘Horizon, you’ve been here for many years and it was never a priority.’”