About
Andrew Wilkinson is living the reality of rural broadband. He successfully collaborated with AT&T in 2004 to make DSL available in our area and more than 10 other areas in Nevada County.
He has continued to work within the local community as an advocate for improved high-speed fiber-optic broadband.
With a 20 year career at Hewlett Packard which started in the networking business, and more recently as VP of Sales & Marketing for a startup focused on cloud networking technology he has been able to combine his experience of business, networking, financing, and engineering construction to continue to find pragmatic ways to bring much-needed high-speed affordable broadband to rural communities.
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Vision
Community-owned fiber-optic network for all of Nevada County with unconstrained access to the internet.
Mission
Develop a reliable, low cost, high-speed, fiber-optic network accessible to all of the Nevada County community for growth in healthcare, jobs, education, and public safety.
PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoff
In October 2019 we had a 3 day planned power shutoff which had a major impact on our daily activity. The new fiber-optic broadband service will be designed to run for at least a week from a lithium-ion battery pack and provided you have power in your home from a generator, or battery system you will be able to continue to access the internet from Nevada County Fiber. We are using AT&T Enterprise Fiber optic which continued to operate during the recent PSPS.
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I heard many local concerns that the 'old copper phone lines' stopped working, and as I understand it the primary reason was that the batteries in the AT&T equipment by the Red Dog mailboxes quickly ran out of power. In 2021 the CPUC are requiring providers to ensure their equipment is can operate for at least 72hrs without utility power. During the severe winter storms, that started late Dec 2021 I was pleased to see that AT&T had provided a diesel generator to our local DSL terminal.
Broadband Consulting
In July 2019 Andrew Wilkinson completed the Tahoe Basin Feasibility Study, that was administered by Tahoe Prosperity Center and funded by the EDA (Economic Development Administration)
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The scope of the feasibility study includes the following key areas
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1) An analysis of the Tahoe Basin region to identify opportunities for industry diversification and how Broadband can be the catalyst for that evolution.
2) Business analysis for the financing and management of Tahoe Basin Broadband infrastructure. This business analysis will include an (i) market analysis; (ii) estimated capital and operating costs; (iii) estimated revenues; (iv) potential regulatory and other barriers; and (v) potential funding structures. This deliverable will essentially help the Tahoe Prosperity Center obtain answers for issues pertaining to who pays for Broadband infrastructure and how.
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3) An analysis determining an appropriate entity to manage Broadband infrastructure and related efforts in the Tahoe Basin. More specifically, a comprehensive analysis will be conducted to identify an appropriate entity, already existing or to be created, to manage Broadband infrastructure expansion, operations, and maintenance.
Planned & Unplanned Downtime Log
12/2/2021 6:34am Planned Downtime of 4mins 32 seconds for the Migration to 1Gigabit affecting 6 out of 9 subscribers
12/31/2021 Unplanned downtime started at 12:43am, lasting 9hrs 2minutes. A severe winter storm produced 36" of snow ultimately, causing utility power to fail on 12/27/2021 at 12:18am. The system failed over to battery and operated until 12/31/2021 at 12:43am, due to a router failed broadband was not re-established at 01/01/22 at 7:46pm. The system operated for 13 days, 13 hours, 42 minutes without utility power
01/01/2022 5:05pm Planned Downtime of 5mins 32 seconds for the transition from secondary back up generator to primary power system after utility power returned.
01/18/2022 8:30 am Unplanned Downtime of 10mins. This outage appears to be from the AT&T fiber-optic backhaul. No issues detected on the NevCoFiber systems.
02/19/2022 2:35 pm Unplanned Downtime of 36 mins. This outage was because the air conditioner had not been turned back on after work was completed at the data cabinet, resulting in the router shutting down due to excess heat. To prevent the reoccurring a door switch relay will be installed to ensure that when the data cabinet door is closed the air conditioner is automatically restarted.
03/01/2022 1:22 pm Unplanned Downtime of 76hrs 7 mins. This outage was caused by a snow storm which caused a tree to fall onto the AT&T back haul fiber optic line. The Nevada County Fiber system continued to operate. AT&T made a temporary repair on Friday 3rd March, but mixed up the fibers and had to make a revision own Saturday 4th March. Service was restored at 5:29pm on Saturday March 4th. PGE was out from 12:02pm Mon Feb 27th 2023 through 2.22pm Monday March 3rd a total of 170hrs and 20 minutes. Generator run time 33hrs.
11/25/2023 10:20am Unplanned Downtime of 1hrs 22 mins. This outage was caused by mistakenly turning off the power to critical network components, the system was recovered and steps taken to eliminate making the same mistake again.