It’s been a couple years since I’ve used the term “redundant’ to refer to the chimerical second fiber line to be built for Humboldt County. But the Times-Standard is still using that term as evident in the article that appears today about the IP Networks fiber line build along the Highway 36 corridor. I prefer the term “alternate.” For one, redundant fiber can imply it’s superfluous. After all it’s redundant!
For another, it implies that the second fiber line will automatically insure that we will not be cut off from the Internet should something happen to the AT&T north-south primary line again. This is not necessarily the case unless AT&T decides to buy into a the IP Networks line, and there is no hard information that they have or will. You need to read all the way near to the end of the T-S article to get any reference to this concept.
The other shadow cast over the sunny headline of the article is the lack of permits from the public lands the IP Networks fiber needs to cross. The article implies that these permits are inevitable and IP Networks is planning on construction at both ends of the fiber while it waits for those permits to come through. Don’t get me wrong I am excited by the possibility of this alternate fiber and hope to hell it gets done and done on the current time line. But it ain’t over until the…well, you know when.