By Bruce Wolfe, HANC President
HANC's monthly (except August) general membership meeting is held downstairs at the Park Branch Library, 1833 Page Street (between Cole and Shrader) on the second Thursday of the month, beginning at 7 pm. Our meetinngs are open to the public and free to attend.
This month we will hear from District 2 Supervisor Mark Farrell (or staff), Tim Pozar of Two P Technology & Network Consultants, Chris Witteman as citizen advocate and subject matter expert as an attorney at the CPUC , Eric Brooks of Our City & SF Green Party, and Michael McCarthy, a citizen advocate, formerly with the city’s Dept of Technology and a community expert specializing in wireless and fiber networks in low-income and affordable housing. We also may have former D1 Supervisor Eric Mar in attendance who helped initiate this effort with Supervisor Farrell.
It wasn’t too long ago that HANC reported on the new jumpstart to bring high-speed, gigabit, fiber-optic Internet to every premises (FttP). This effort is to be a utility-based model, meaning it would be ubiquitous like any other utility--for example, water or sewer—and connect to every home, business and building. D2 Supervisor Mark Farrell became the third attempt over the past decade to try his hand at this effort despite multiple other Supervisors having failed in bringing FttP citywide forward, but, nonetheless, having laid the groundwork. Farrell put together a ‘coalition’ of sorts to help ferret out exactly what various community and business sectors would like to see in increasing digital inclusion in San Francisco. The result was hundreds of respondents to surveys, with more than half demanding a public-owned Internet that is secure, anonymous, cheaper and faster than what we are being gouged for now by the incumbent for-profit services.
Additionally, Supervisor Farrell hired Columbia Technology Company (CTC), one of two gold-standard consultants on municipal-scale network deployments, and organized a blue ribbon group of consultants. This is the third study on fiber they have done for us. The study came out last week which breaks down various scenarios. (see http://sfbos.org/sites/default/files/CTC-Deliverable22-final-20171017.pdf)
We will get a presentation on the CTC study, where the process is currently, some discussion on key details and updates to keep you informed and educated, and how our collective voice will be needed loud and clear and consistent to finally bring this to fruition.
We can do it! See you there! Please join us on Thursday, November 9, at 7:00 pm at the Park Branch Library, 1833 Page Street.