Mar 27, 2023

CENIC in 2022: A Groundbreaking Year for CENIC and California

As the world emerged into a new post-pandemic normal in 2022, CENIC and its community – dedicated to broadband access and affordability – began applying the powerful lessons offered from the prior two years. The pandemic unveiled persistent inequalities in broadband access and affordability; the remote work, learning, and telehealth options that enabled some Californians to weather the pandemic well were not an option for those with inadequate or absent connectivity. Their financial and physical health as well as their children’s education suffered. The state of California responded by passing SB 156 or the Broadband for All initiative in 2021. That legislation provides a framework for a historic $6 billion broadband investment to create a statewide middle-mile broadband infrastructure connecting to the un- and underserved areas of the state and enabling last-mile and local providers to serve these areas, closing the digital divide once and for all.

CENIC was chosen as the third-party administrator for this effort, leading to the creation of the CENIC California Middle-Mile Broadband Initiative, LLC dba GOLDENSTATENET, in cooperation with a wide range of stakeholders – municipal, state, Tribal, private sector, and other community organizations. Construction began on this statewide broadband infrastructure in 2022, and together with the California Department of Technology, Caltrans, and others, GOLDENSTATENET continues to finalize the network backbone design and initiate outreach with prospective last-mile providers throughout the state.

Other CENIC initiatives relating to this broader mission of access and affordability include Broadband Infrastructure Grant activities, collaborations with California’s Tribal Nations, the expansion of the Pacific Research Platform into the National Research Platform, and CENIC’s 25th anniversary webinar.

• The Start of Construction on the California Middle-Mile Broadband Infrastructure (10.27.22)

• Tribal Partners in Building Broadband Infrastructure – 2022 Conference Video (9.28.22)
  

• The Pacific Research Platform Goes National (7.1.22)

• The Broadband Infrastructure Grant (BIG) Identifies and Connects Schools to CalREN (6.9.22)

• CENIC Celebrates 25th Anniversary (3.15.22)
  

CalREN Enhancement and Automation

CENIC has implemented and participated in several types of network automation, the creation of a set of network maintenance tools that free our Operations engineers from repetitive manual work so that we can provide our customers with the responsive high-performance network capacity and services needed. We have also worked with our partner vendors to test network enhancements that will create an even higher-capacity CalREN at a lower cost in equipment and power. Among these activities are the following:

• CENIC Validates Coherent Pluggables (12.12.22)

• Next Gen Infrastructure Boosted by MPLS Delivers Results (10.14.22)

• The Future of Network Automation at CENIC (6.28.22)

• Solving Network Connections for USC on Catalina Island (Announced 2.9.23)

We also were delighted to welcome attendees, sponsors, and presenters back in person to our 2022 Annual Conference held in Monterey last September – the first in-person conference since 2019 and a resounding success. Many presentations were live-streamed for those unable to attend and can be found on the CENIC YouTube channel. If you couldn’t make it to Monterey, you can still watch the presentations and visit the conference website for an overview of the program. Other stories relating to community engagement include:

• CENIC Facilitating Conference Network for R&E Demos at Optical Fiber Conference in San Diego, CA (2.18.22)

• CENIC and PNWGP Receiving the SCinet Spirit of Innovation Award (11.17.22)

• CENIC Welcoming Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center (10.14.22)

• APOnet Members Including Pacific Wave Collaborate for SC22 (10.26.22)

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