On February 16, 2012, the California Public Utilities Commission approved a $450,000 grant to the San Diego Imperial Regional Broadband Consortium. The grant will allow the the Consortium to move forward with plans to improve the availability and adoption of broadband technology throughout the San Diego/Imperial region.
The SDIRBC's proposal describes in full the Consortium's three-year action plan. In summary,the SDIRBC’s primary areas of focus are education, health and safety, and economic development. The SDIRBC takes an integrated approach to the use of technologies benefitting the lives of residents in these important areas. The SDIRBC will embark on a three-year plan to study the region’s unique needs, conduct pilot projects to address the needs, and study and report on the results. The final product from the three-year study will be a Regional Broadband Plan that describes the findings and recommends public and private projects that would best address the needs.
The SDIRBC is a no-fee member-based organization. An Executive committee provides governance and makes fiscal and policy decisions. A Steering Committee focuses on regional technology needs related to education, health and safety, economic development, and deployment or access needs in rural and urban communities.
The SDIRBC proposes to be a partner and supporter to regional technology companies such as Internet Service Providers (ISP) by providing valuable information about the needs of the community. The SDIRBC offers feedback to technology companies in an effort to help them develop and implement projects and technologies that better suit the regional need.
The Consortium is led by the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation. The San Diego Futures Foundation acts as the fiscal sponsor. Current members of the organization are:
- East County Economic Development Council
- Info Power to the People
- Imperial Valley Telecommunications Authority
- Imperial County Office of Education
- Mountain Health and Community Services
- San Diego County Office of Education
- San Diego Futures Foundation
- San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation
- San Diego North Economic Development Council
- transition IT
- Tribal Digital Village
- UCSD CAL IT2
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