Nestled in the heart of Mendocino County, Comptche, California is a charming, rustic town that paints a harmonious picture of rural life in Northern California. An enchanting landscape where towering redwoods touch the sky, the rhythm of life is slow and steady, yet the hustle and bustle of urban life is not too far off.
With a population of about 200 and average properties around 40 acres, Comptche is truly a serene and idyllic California rural community.
Although, make no mistake about it, rural or not, Comptche residents demand modern communications for bandwidth-rich activities like online learning, remote work, telehealth, and entertainment. However, residents and businesses did not have access to fixed broadband service to meet these demands.
We recently announced new availability of AT&T Fiber to more than 75 customer locations in parts of Comptche, serving residential and small businesses in the area, providing the rural community with the modern, high-speed network infrastructure necessary in today’s economy. This investment was made possible through collaboration with the community, including working with the Comptche Broadband Committee.
Bringing fiber to communities like Comptche is another example of how we are working with communities across California to upgrade our older copper networks to more resilient, advanced technologies like fiber. For rural communities, upgrading our network not only helps narrow the digital divide, but it also means improving network resiliency, which helps networks withstand and recover from natural disasters and severe weather events.
We’ve invested nearly $8.6 billion in our California networks from 2020-2022. Building on the more than 3.1 million customer locations in California that currently have access to AT&T Fiber, we’re working to expand fiber to more residents and small businesses in 2024, including in underserved communities. And, we’ll keep the momentum going throughout the year as California has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to help bridge the digital divide with the influx of federal and state funding for high-speed broadband.
We’re proud of the collaborative work being done in Comptche to expand and modernize our digital infrastructure. We continue to be committed to upgrade technology to make fiber internet available to more California communities, including rural communities like Comptche, so more Californians have access to reliable and affordable high-speed internet needed for today’s connectivity needs.
In this short video, see why this project was so important for residents and local leaders in this corner of rural California.
