Santa Cruz Fiber sometimes says fiber infrastructure is “future-proof” or that it’s “the last internet you’ll ever need.”

Strong statements. What do we mean by them?

If you look back at older communications networks, you’ll see that because they were costly investments they were built to last. And last they did: telephone lines installed around Santa Cruz County in the mid-20th century are still used today. Cable connections strung 50 years ago — made of copper, like phone lines — are still delivering TV. We’ve changed the way we use the wires, the equipment they plug into, but not the lines themselves.

We expect fiber to last that long, and probably longer. That gets us into the 2060s and beyond.

Fiber is made of glass, which has a lot of advantages in longevity over copper. Glass is inert. It doesn’t generate much heat and doesn’t require electrical current. The material in fiber optic cables is similar to what’s used in boat hulls. It’s tough stuff.

And fiber scales up. Consumer-level technology already exists to send a hundred times as much data through fiber cables as most people use today. As more bandwidth is needed, we can deliver thousands and even millions of times as much data with minimal changes in equipment, and the same cables we’re installing now.

If you take advantage of the opportunity to let Santa Cruz Fiber build to your house, you may someday switch the services you order over that fiber, but you won’t need to replace the cable itself. 

The fiber we install today should give you massive internet for the foreseeable future. There’s a good chance it's the last internet connection you’ll ever need to install.