Broadband Needs Assessment

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Why Broadband Access is Important

As more of our lives transition to the digital world, access to the internet becomes increasingly important. Online applications for business, health, education, security and entertainment have all become integrated into our daily routines. To function, they must be carried across high-speed, reliable broadband infrastructure.

Local roads feed into state roads, which feed into the interstate highway system to interconnect individuals to the country’s infrastructure. Similarly, local broadband infrastructure connects to regional and national high-speed networks that interconnect with the global Internet. If local broadband infrastructure is insufficient, (i.e., local roads are insufficient), users (drivers) will have difficulty accessing the global Internet (interstate highway system).

Therefore, broadband access is critical to ensure that users are able to reach the electronic world over a reliable, high-speed local broadband infrastructure. Without this, the applications they use every day don’t function properly.

What the City is doing to assess and support broadband improvements

The City of Mountain View is conducting a study of internet availability, access and affordability as part of a citywide broadband needs assessment. The City is seeking to gather first-hand information through the survey to understand how household and business access to high-speed and affordable internet service can be improved. The City has contracted with a consultant to investigate options for improvements to fiber broadband coverage and identify opportunities for private providers to increase coverage in our community. The consultant will assess public assets, evaluate the broadband market, and conduct a gap analysis to meet the needs of the community and ensure equitable broadband service to business and residential communities.

The online survey is only the first step in the assessment process. In the coming weeks, the City will host community workshops and focus groups with residents, businesses, stakeholders and community groups to understand how to chart a path forward that achieves high-speed, affordable broadband service across Mountain View.

The needs assessment is scheduled to be completed in fall 2024, and the City will share updated information as it becomes available.

How residents can be involved

The City of Mountain View conducted an online survey as part of the assessment process from April 17 through June 13, 2024.

The survey was available in English, Spanish, Chinese and Russian.

View the news release.

Scope of the Needs Assessment and Gap Analysis Study

The needs assessment and gap analysis study will assess strategies that explore leveraging and expanding fiber-optic and wireless network assets, in cooperation with broadband service providers, to make more broadband available at affordable prices. The study will focus heavily on how this network can be strategically employed to improve economic development, education, healthcare, public safety and general quality of life in our community.

This study will include:

Compiling a geo-data inventory of the existing public and private broadband assets in the City that could be leveraged to expand digital access.
Analyzing the current broadband market and the incumbent internet service providers, including their rates, speed tiers, and coverage areas.
Conducting a community survey that assesses the broadband environment, costs, affordability, uses, trends, and needs.
Outreach to community-based organizations, non-profits, businesses, chamber of commerce, social services, schools, and anchor institutions to collect information about broadband uses and needs.
Identifying permitting and engineering processes and practices related to broadband and communications and assessing gaps and shortfalls that can improve private broadband investment.
Outlining possible operational and business models for the expansion of broadband services and recommending preferred models.
Combining the findings into a gap analysis and SWOT matrix (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats).

Q: What is the role of local government in expanding broadband access?

A: Local government organizations have several important roles to play in the expansion of broadband in their communities. Generally, local governments are not in the business of providing telecom services, internet or television. However, we are in the business of providing infrastructure: roads, water, sewer and other physical frameworks. Instead of providing services directly, local government’s best option might be to allow telecommunications and cable companies to use this existing infrastructure to reach customers in the community. Broadband is just another form of infrastructure, digital infrastructure. It is deployed in a fashion similar to existing infrastructure, following the right-of-way which interconnects throughout the community. This is the primary opportunity for government to help providers build local broadband infrastructure, which includes the conduit, fiber-optic cable and related items. Because local government often builds this infrastructure under more favorable conditions than private providers, it makes sense for local government to coordinate with the private providers, allowing them to use the infrastructure to deliver services to the community.

Q: What is broadband infrastructure?

Q: What is bandwidth?

Q: How much bandwidth do we need?

A: The amount of bandwidth we need grows every year. The largest growth has been for video – traditional pay TV, “over the top” or Internet-based video, and video communications. Video requires not only extra bandwidth but also extra reliability. Additionally, internet-based video applications continue to push more and more bandwidth, such as Hulu and Netflix. Business applications have become more bandwidth-intensive and also need reliability to function correctly. The industry standard for high-speed bandwidth is 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) – or 1,000 megabits per second. This 1 Gbps standard is needed for both download and upload speeds.

Q: What about other kinds of data?

A: Bandwidth requirements for many kinds of data are exploding. For example, new digital cameras can create larger and larger images; 30 megabytes is not uncommon. In health care, the medical images produced by equipment such as CT scanners are a hundred times larger than camera images. In the last few years, many industries have entered the era of “Big Data” applications that collect and analyze data on massive scales. Today’s Big Data applications range from consumer pricing models to online marketing to DNA sequencing to particle physics to control of electrical grids. Big Data doesn’t work without broadband services that maintain high bandwidth and reliability.