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Palo Alto is moving ahead with a planned citywide fiber network following a recent city council vote in June.

By: Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

Elected leaders in Palo Alto, California have moved forward with plans to construct a citywide fiber network.

The project, which is now in the first phase of construction, plans to begin activating customers by 2025, according to the City of Palo Alto’s website.

City counselors approved an initial study analyzing impacts of the project, aptly named Fiber to the Premise, at their June 17 meeting.

With the approval, councilors authorized $339,076 for the design, build, and delivery of a modular communication shelter, known as a ‘fiber hut,’ by Thermo Bond Buildings.

The initial environmental study for the project, which was approved with a 6-1 vote at the Palo Alto City Council’s June 17 meeting, concluded that the project “could result in a number of significant effects on the environment” without mitigation measures being implemented.

As such, the study “identified mitigation measures that would reduce each of those significant effects to a less-than-significant level,” according to the resolution adopted by the city council.

As a result of the council’s vote to move forward with the project, the city will now seek a habitat assessment to reduce impacts on the Crotch’s bumble bee, an endangered species of bee, during the project’s construction.

While the city moves ahead with the project, at least one voice on the city council has been a notable opponent.

“Ten years ago, I think it would have been great to have Fiber to the Premise,” said Greg Tanaka at the council’s June 17 meeting.

Tanaka, a city councilor who opposed moving forward with the project, said he knows the importance of broadband but voiced concerns that the city arriving late to the fiber broadband party in California.

He continued, saying he didn’t believe the network would be built in a cost-effective manner.

“I think we’re too late on this, so I don’t think we should spend more money on this project,” he said.

Other mitigation measures will include protections of tidal and brackish marshes, and surveys to establish whether or not bats are present in trees that will be removed as a result of the project, according to a mitigation monitoring outline published on the city’s website.

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