Snohomish County Supports Our Efforts!

I had a meeting on Monday with Snohomish County's Executive Director.

I explained what we're up to (TVWS) and they are very very interested.

They verify the figures I've used of surging growth expectations (especially in the rural area of the county) and have been trying to determine how best to meet that.

You may be aware that a couple of the traditional ISPs (Frontier Communications among them) are having a very difficult time with their income now that more people are unbundling and cutting the cord.  Our problem is that they won't budget an improvement in our hardware and fiber and because of that, we have to look for other alternatives ourselves. That's a difficult cycle for them and one we may want to take advantage of in putting them in a uncomfortable competitive situation. Serve us or lose us.

TVWS (TV White Space) is the alternative I'm championing as you read in the long-ish email I sent. It has an extended reach of 15 to 20 miles.

The County (Snoho) wants to find something to:

1. Serve the underserved rural areas to assist in the growth trend we're experiencing (third fastest growing county in the US)

2. Create a disaster response plan when issues like a landslide cut out all normal options.

3. Become part of the "Smart Cities" initiative. This saves time, money, man-power and better serves the community. Imagine the ability to turn on park lights with an internet toggle.  Even more quickly dispatch fire and first responders based on neighborhood signaling, etc.


The meeting was a successful one. More details are available for anyone interested.
I left them with three "asks":

1). I need a contact into Weyerhauser to talk about the tower they own up on Dahlberg (AKA: Dahlbero) Mountain just four miles to the east of us.

2). For statistics purposes, I need to know if there are any big companies moving into the promised I-5 tech corridor of Snoho County. These stats will go into my business case.

3). I need a support letter from them, which will carry a lot of weight when we go out for grant funding.


(If any of you know answers to the above questions, or have ideas please leave comments. We need all eyes, ears, and brains!)

Next step is to begin researching past grant winners and find out what they did right. I also need to know we meet the demand and requirement levels of the grant. I have had a discussion with MSFTs legislative and connectivity group and they believe we are a candidate but I still need to validate and sell that in the grant with parallel facts to FCC Rulings and TVWS abilities. [Don't fret if this is all info that isn't making sense yet. I felt the same 28 days ago when I started learning about it!]

Very shortly I/ We can start the grant writing process. It needs to be bullet proof for us to win. It will include some "engineering" to spec out a topographical mesh system to relay the TVWS system. I encourage those among us that are 'Engine-Nerds' to jump in and help out. I NEED YOU!

Thanks to all for your continued support and PLEASE-  ASK ALL YOUR NEIGHBORS TO SIGN OUR ONLINE PETITION - EVERY CHANCE YOU GET.   We need to be a broken record about this. If we show a strong presence and a committed group, we will succeed.

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/net-impact

-@lix