As part of its continued push for economic growth and development in the city, a second Northern California city this week approved the deployment of a citywide fiber-optic network.
The Marysville city council allowed City Manager Jim Schaad to enter into a right-of-way access and use agreement for deployment of the high-speed Internet network with SiFi Networks Marysville LLC.
The full citywide installation will come at no cost to the city and its taxpayers, as SiFi will be paying for the entire effort.
“There is no cost to the city for the implementation of this system in that it is privately funded,” a staff report said. “SiFi Networks Yuba City LLC will pay the city up to $60,000 per year to assist with the review and processing of SiFi’s permit applications.”
Yuba City approved a similar project in September.
As with Yuba City and other communities SiFi works with, the company will “own and maintain the backbone infrastructure” and will lease the fiber lines that will run through every street in Marysville to Internet service providers who will be able to offer the service to customers.
“Residents and businesses will have options in that they can maintain their existing ISP or seek subscriptions with providers who have leased fiber from SiFi,” the city said in a staff report.
Schaad said that without both Yuba City and Marysville taking part in the installations, Marysville would not have been able to enter into the agreement with SiFi.
Because SiFi is essentially picking up the bill for the installation of the network, the city was able to avoid using federal funds for a similar project.
“The company, SiFi, expects that this project will be completed in conjunction with their efforts in Yuba City,” Schaad said. “That is actually how we found out about this. Yuba City has already approved SiFi to install a similar network in their community. We are able to piggyback on Yuba City’s contract. Without that contract, Yuba City is not large enough to make an attractive enough site to do so. So that is a plus for us.”
He added: “Through the COVID crisis and the federal funding efforts, there had been a lot of discussion, particularly with American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars, on using those dollars to provide broadband access to disadvantaged communities. I think Yuba City is thinking in the same manner. Why spend our ARPA dollars on broadband when we can have private investment put that in for us and utilize our ARPA dollars for things such as street repairs and other infrastructure?”
Schaad said SiFi expects the project to be completed 24 months after approval.
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