BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Many communities in Kern County have a problem with internet access.
A private company is looking to help bridge the digital divide in Bakersfield and Kern County by building open-access fiber networks throughout the community.
“Earlier this year we had five major outages. One lasted three days because they're too busy to fix it. We need competition,” said Micahel Turnup, a Kern County resident.
This is the reality residents in rural communities face when it comes to internet connectivity. But SiFi Networks is hoping to bring relief to this issue.
SiFi Networks approached the City of Bakersfield and Kern County earlier this year about making a $400 million dollar investment toward improving quality broadband access. The tech company wants to ensure that all communities have equal access to sustainable, reliable internet.
“We are currently the leader in fiber to the home, privately financed fiber home deployments, and so we’re doing this throughout the country. Our networks are open access which means that multiple carriers can be on one network,” explained Shawn Parker, the vice president of government affairs for SiFi Networks.
"There's areas that just don't get coverage right," said Parker. "Aside from the fact that they don't have a lot of good bandwidth these days or the ability to keep up with the times, it's competition. It's innovation. Those things really drive what we think of quality broadband service, and that's what we provide at SiFi."
The goal of the broadband project is to reach an agreement with the city and county by the end of September. SiFi intends to begin the next steps of building the network about a year later.
"Once we start building it out, within a few months we start turning up services as we come along building it out," said Parker. "Because this build takes multiple years to build out, we'll be turning up services along the way." SiFi Networks says that once the project is built out, it will add 10 gigabits for residential broadband and up to 100 gigabits for business connectivity.
The service will not cost Bakersfield or Kern County anything, but certain communities will benefit more than others.
"Oildale or the City of Lamont is going to get the same kind of network infrastructure that you would get in maybe Seven Oaks or a more affluent area," said Kern County Chief Operations Officer Jim Zervis. "There's an equity that this brings to addressing the digital divide throughout all of metro Bakersfield."
Parker says they already have “fiber cities” across the state in places like Fullerton, Lancaster, Palmdale, and more. But in Bakersfield and Kern County only certain communities will be a part of the network.
“For this build, we selected certain areas that will begin the fiber city build if you will,” said Parker.
Once it's built residents can choose to remain with their own internet provider or seek subscriptions with providers that lease with SiFi Networks. But the new infrastructure will have no fiscal impact on local communities.
“It’s a private investment that will support bridging that digital divide, right, and it will continue to evaluate where we build out from there for the county itself.”
Parker says this technology will further connect our neighborhoods.
“It's as good as a next-generation type network as you can possibly find out there today.”
U.S. Census data shows that as of 2020 just more than 90 percent of Kern County residents reported access to a computer in their homes. Of that 90 percent, nearly 84 percent said they had broadband internet subscriptions.
That's roughly in line with nationwide numbers: with nearly 92% of Americans having access to a computer in the home, and just more than 85% of them subscribed to broadband internet services.
