The Upstate California Connect Consortium

In summary, 16 rural counties in Northern California (Butte, Colusa, Del Norte, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Plumas, Shasta, Siskiyou, Sonoma, Tehama, Trinity, and Yolo) remain without a comprehensive, integrated, open access, middle-mile, and last-mile broadband infrastructure.

It is the mission of the Upstate California Connect Consortium (UCCC) to develop and facilitate the implementation of a broadband infrastructure plan that will provide a cohesive, integrated and robust middle-mile and last-mile network infrastructure that will interconnect four of these counties in Upstate California (Colusa, Glenn, Lake and Sonoma) together for the first time.

At the same time, UCCC will coordinate efforts with other regional groups to develop and implement a plan for a comprehensive and cohesive infrastructure that will encompass all 16 counties.

Having such a cohesive network infrastructure throughout Northern California will have a similar impact as roads and waterways currently have. Without such a comprehensive broadband infrastructure, the over 1.6 million northern Californians living in these counties will continue to be deprived of proper access to the broadband services that are increasingly essential to the quality of life in the 21st century.

Cohesiveness and coordination between efforts is vital as there are many pervasive collaborative resource-sharing activities and services throughout Northern California that cut across county boundaries. These activities and services are related to:

1. economic growth of businesses and industry;
2. enhanced of educational services;
3. access to increased library services and resources;
4. improved access to quality health delivery;
5. interoperability of public safety services; and
6. online access to all levels of government services.

Cooperation and coordination between efforts that touch on these areas is vital to ensure no unnecessary duplication of effort, a stronger voice for advocacy, coordination of communication and messaging, and the ability to take advantage of economies of scale.