Internet Access to Improve for Tulare County's Rural Residents

August 18, 2010

A project designed to bring high-speed Internet access to millions of San Joaquin Valley residents received a $46.6 million boost today in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds.
 
The Central Valley Independent Network (CVIN) will use the funds for a 1,371-mile fiber optic network called the Central Valley Next-General Broadband Infrastructure Project. This project will provide high-speed Internet service through 18 California counties, from Colusa to Kern counties. Tulare County officials began working with CENIC officials on this ARRA proposal in early 2010, drawing together a working group composed of technology leaders from the Tulare County Library, technicians with the Tulare County Office of Education, local cities and public safety officials from throughout the region.
 
Steve Worthley, Chairman of the Tulare County Board of Supervisors, said this project will be a benefit to County government and its residents.
 
“This assistance will allow people to access the Internet in a way that helps businesses and families,” Chairman Worthley said. “This type of project is important for all counties who have residents in rural communities.”

The project encompasses a service area of 18 counties covering approximately 40, 000 square miles or roughly a quarter of the state's geography, and a population of more than 4 million, or more than 11 percent of the state's population. More than 11,300 businesses and 110,000 homes in southern and central Tulare County could potentially access the new fiber-optic lines the project seeks to install, according to CVIN.
 
The fiber-optic lines will run from the Earlimart area through Terra Bella toward Porterville and Lindsay, then west near Exeter, Farmersville, Tulare and Visalia before continuing to Kings County.  (View proposed route)
 
Part of the plan is to lay fiber-optic connections directly to the Tulare County Office of Education and College of the Sequoias in Visalia, Porterville City College and the Visalia branch of the Tulare County Library, the Lindsay Library, and municipal libraries in Tulare and Porterville. Besides improving web speeds, the fiber-optic lines would allow greater numbers of public and business computers to be connected online.

For more information about the project, please visit http://www.cvngbip.org/overview/scope.html