December 2021 OpenCape Newsletter

December 2021

The end of the year is a great time to review the progress we've made toward our mission of providing local, reliable and affordable broadband access through our state-of-the-art 550+ mile Fiber Optic Network. OpenCape made great strides in 2021 and we are very excited about our prospects in 2022.

OpenCape began 2021 with a major infrastructure improvement, as we made a substantial investment to upgrade the phototonic layer of our network. This means we have increased our backbone from 100GB to 400GB to meet customer demand as we plan for significant growth in the near future.

In the spring of 2021, OpenCape added several new members to our already outstanding Board of Directors. Sean Gonsalves is a Senior Reporter/Editor at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and Alison Caron is owner of Alison Caron Design in Hyannis. Additionally, Sarah Deutsch is a practicing attorney in the Washington D.C. area and she was previously Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Verizon Communications. Sean, Alison, and Sarah bring a wealth of expertise and knowledge and we are very excited to have them join the rest of the talented members of the OpenCape Board.

Also this spring, OpenCape was pleased to host six servers for the team at Light Iron while season 10 of American Horror Story was filmed in Provincetown. OpenCape's ultra-high-speed internet connection enabled the Light Iron production team to quickly and easily upload daily footage to the West Coast as filming took place on the Outer Cape.

In 2020-2021, OpenCape debuted a new scholarship program and awarded $1,000 scholarships to fifteen local students to help fund their college educations. We will be offering scholarships again in the 2022-2023 school year and hope to continue to expand and enhance this program in the future to help further develop the information technology skills of the regional workforce.

In response to a substantial uptick in the number of Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) cyberattacks across the country, OpenCape partnered with industry leader Corero in the summer of 2021 to offer affordable DDoS mitigation services to all of our clients. We worked in partnership with the Corero team to deploy their SmartWall® Real-Time DDoS Protection and installed inline appliances at the edge of our network in Boston and Providence to deliver 24/7 visibility and mitigation without impacting performance or increasing latency. We continue to offer deep discounts to customers who would like this protection.

As part of our ongoing efforts to advance Fiber-to-the-Home in our region, OpenCape is currently piloting residential service in several locations, including the Sea Captain's Row project in Hyannis. The work we have been doing in downtown Falmouth connecting small businesses to a shared Gigabit of service is a perfect model for how neighborhoods could be connected as well. Our aim is to work with every town on Cape Cod and the Islands, as well as municipalities over the bridge within our footprint, to help facilitate community action that will bring residential fiber to the communities we serve.

OpenCape spent much of the second half of 2021 advocating for federal and state infrastructure dollars to be directed to our region. With funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the Commonwealth's Capital Plan, and the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program, the time is right for the Commonwealth to make substantial investments in future-focused broadband on the Cape, the Islands, and Southeastern Massachusetts. To date, the Administration, Senate and House have allocated only $50M toward broadband expansion in the Commonwealth, which is a tiny fraction compared with other states. We still have much work to do in this arena.

In summary, much of 2021 was spent laying groundwork for goals and objectives we have envisioned for 2022 and beyond and we can't wait to see what the New Year will bring! Through innovative projects and strong service implementation, we have positively impacted local economies throughout our community, and moved forward on a number of initiatives to connect our area's businesses, large and small.

Wishing you a safe and happy holiday season, and the very best in the New Year!

Warmly,

Steve