Regional Fiber Optic Study

Following Hurricane Harvey’s devastation of pole infrastructure along Texas’ gulf coast in 2017, there was an urgent need for the region to convert to underground fiber networking. As first sponsored by Aransas County, then later with the Coastal Bend Council of Governments, an Emergency Management oriented broadband feasibility study was performed by CobbFendley with a scope that included stakeholder engagement, understanding of the existing infrastructure, determining the needs based on gaps in coverage, conducting regulatory and jurisdictional research with legal analysis, determining a high-level network design, developing alternatives and options for deployment, creating a cost-benefit analysis, determining the community impact, and finally, researching additional funding that could help pay for this undertaking.

Through completing the study, CobbFendley submitted a design that included an 8 county, 18 city, middle mile, fiber-optic loop that included 100GB high-speed ring topology with up to five alternative routing possibilities. In total, over 440 miles of total fiber was included in the high-level design that would help lead to fiber-to-the-home in each of the cities as well as multiple drops for Emergency Management purposes within each city at more than 70 different demand points. Collaboration with local organizations, ranging from the University of Houston – Victoria to various County Judges, was made possible through stakeholder engagement and public outreach in order to better understand the many needs throughout the coastal region. The outcome of this process produced options for Public-Private Partnership possibilities with applications for seeking NTIA financing to assist in building this newly proposed regional network.