Happy Gimme Fiber Day!
This Wednesday, the Fiber to the Home Council Americas traveled to Oregon to celebrate the third annual “Gimme Fiber Day” with Canby Telcom and the Canby, Oregon community.
Gimme Fiber Day is celebrated annually — in the U.S. and around the globe — and honors the achievements of Professor Charles Kao, who pioneered the use and development of fiber optics in telecommunications, to show how fiber optics have positively impacted communities around the world and what policymakers can do to accelerate its deployment and adoption.
This year, to commemorate the day, Canby Telcom threw a big party to involve the whole community that included hands-on demonstrations of how fiber optics work. Kids and adults alike could see first-hand demonstrations of the physics of fiber that delivers Internet speeds up to 100 times faster than previously available.
Canby Telecom also showed off their fiber installation map and strategy, which includes 84-square miles of installation — a big investment in the future of the community. The town was chosen back in June as this year’s “Gimme Fiber Day” award winner for leading Oregon, and the Pacific Northwest, into fiber-fed communities with a roll out of gigabit connections to more than 2,700 addresses.
During the celebration, FTTH Council President & CEO Heather Burnett Gold, Canby Telcom Chairman of the Board Roger Reif, Canby Telcom President Paul Hauer, State Representative Bill Kennemer, Canby City Council President Tim Dale, SR Smith Director of IT John Butler and FTTH Council Chairman of the Board Kevin Morgan discussed how fiber positively impacts the community of Canby. “Fiber access provides superior data quality and bandwidth and positions us for a future that we haven’t imagined yet,” said Tim Dale, President of the Canby City Council.
“We are very excited to recognize Canby Telcom and the northern Willamette Valley area during our third annual ‘Gimme Fiber Day’ celebration,” Gold said. “Inspired by the economic, educational and innovation benefits that FTTH deployments have brought to communities across the U.S., Canby Telcom leveraged their experience and infrastructure to deliver these benefits to the city of Canby. It is this leadership and foresight that led us to select Canby Telcom as our third annual ‘Gimme Fiber Day’ Award recipient.”
“Canby Telcom’s roots are deep in this community,” said Paul Hauer, President of Canby Telcom. “I look forward to watching Canby grow as we continue to invest in its future,” he said, “that’s why we invited the community to celebrate our progress, because we are their cooperative and this is their connection to the world.”
