Cruzio fiber vault on California St.

Last week, Cruzio joined an excited group on a very special tour. It was an in-depth look at one of the biggest and most important projects we’ve ever been involved in: the long-awaited and newly completed long-haul fiber path going all the way from Santa Cruz down to Soledad.

Though the Cruzio “vault” you see above seems unassuming, it actually represents a huge leap forward for broadband infrastructure along the central coast. This vault, along with dozens more like it and miles and miles of conduit and fiber-optic cable, is the result of  a years-long project to build out this broadband freeway through three counties. This means several significant things:

1. Right away it gives Cruzio the ability to serve homes and businesses in Watsonville with the same level of service we offer in Santa Cruz.
2. It provides us a second fiber path so, if something affects our primary fiber (like a backhoe or a squirrel) no one will even notice. It will automatically switch over to our redundant fiber.
3. It means we can tap into this fiber anywhere along the route to serve neighborhoods, cities, towns and other large institutions. Because the fiber is already connected to our HQ in downtown Santa Cruz, the new “dark fiber” can immediately be accessed and put to use.

We toured a length of the fiber path last week with a posse of the people who made this whole project possible. The group included the California Public Utilities Commission–who helped fund the project, UCSC and the Central Coast Broadband Consortium–who were both instrumental in getting it built, and Sunesys — the construction company that built it.

With a great asset like this now available, of course we wasted no time putting it to use. Cruzio immediately “lit” the fiber from Santa Cruz to Watsonville and we were keen to show off our connection at the Watsonville civic data center.

This is a momentous occasion for us; this backbone’s completion means our services are now stronger and more stable than ever.

“Cruzio is a long-time, trusted Sunesys partner. Their investment in connecting their data center to the backbone fiber, and their long-standing in the local community, makes them an excellent choice for any organization wishing to connect to this infrastructure.” says Sunesys’ Steve DeFranco, Western Region Director of Sales, commending the project.

Now that you know a little bit more about how big this project was, stick around to take a look at some pictures from the highlights of our tour:

A look inside a “vault” along the new fiber path.

Steve Blum of the Central Coast Broadband Consortium speaks to the group about the ins and outs of the project