SAN DIEGO—For years, San Diego has made the “Top Wired Cities in the US” lists and continues to be a leader in connectivity and broadband speed, Cox Communications' SVP and regional manager Sam Attisha tells GlobeSt.com. Cox recently helped the city of San Diego become a Smart Gigabit Community, a program founded by the non-profit US Ignite, which focuses on advanced networking technology in order to build smart communities.

The city of San Diego aims to create the largest city-based deployment of an Internet-of-Things platform in the world. In addition to the US Ignite involvement, Cox recently built more than 50 miles of fiber to provide 92 schools in the San Diego Unified School District with access to a 175-gigabit network. A total of 189 schools in the district are now connected to a fast Ethernet network that will enable all types of digital learning. The network serves more than 130,000 students in the district, the second largest district in California.

GlobeSt.com spoke with Attisha about what this means for residents and businesses here.

GlobeSt.com: How does San Diego's digital infrastructure compare to other Southern California markets?

Attisha: For years, San Diego has regularly made the “Top Wired Cities in the US” lists, and it continues to be a leader in connectivity and broadband speed. Cox has been a big part of that since we have invested more than $1 billion in our communities, including bringing gigabit Internet speeds to homes, schools and businesses. We've also built out Wi-Fi hotspots in areas such as Downtown San Diego. Cox also built the next-generation network for the second-largest school district in California—San Diego Unified—which enables the district to serve 189 schools over a 175-Gb/s WAN (wide area network). There's a lot of connectivity happening in San Diego, and Cox is proud to play a role.

GlobeSt.com: What does being a Smart Gigabit Community do for this market, and what does it mean for residents and tenants here?

Attisha: Being a Smart Gigabit Community will spur innovation in next-generation business and applications to help solve real-world problems and enrich the lives of those who live in a smart gigabit community, whether it's in public safety and transportation or health and education. For example, new applications developed through the Smart Gigabit Community program could enable first responders to improve their response times or make it easier for residents to access public transportation, which is important in San Diego. Applications being developed in other smart gigabit communities include an app that discourages texting while driving by monitoring someone's traveling to know they arrived safely and an app that tracks storms and flooding to keep people safe on the road.

GlobeSt.com: Where do you see San Diego's digital capabilities heading in the future?

Attisha: It's already estimated that in the next five years, the average household will have 50 connected devices. Think beyond computers and tablets and smartphones, but also large and small smart appliances, telemedicine, 3D printers—anything that makes your life easier and connects you to the world. In this effort, Cox remains fully committed to gigabit internet deployment. We have launched Cox Gigablast service within all our major markets nationwide, including San Diego, and our next phase is to drive broad gigabit availability nationwide via DOCSIS 3.1, the next generation cable broadband standard. DOCSIS 3.1 is live now with employees, and we will begin deploying to customers in some markets later this year. Our current deployment schedule is ahead of many providers; 40% of the households we serve nationwide will have access to gigabit speeds by the end of 2017, and we will continue to expand aggressively the availability for our customers going forward. Transferring big data will be critically important in our communities to prevent diseases, identify business and social trends, combat crime and conduct environmental research, among other things.

GlobeSt.com: What else should our readers know about the SGC program?

Attisha: The Smart Gigabit Communities program is really about harnessing the power of technology to enrich the lives of those who live in a smart gigabit community, whether through improving community services and public safety, creating a highly skilled jobs force, or making education accessible to everyone no matter where they live. We are excited to be investing in San Diego, and playing a role and to help transform all the communities we serve.

GlobeSt.com spoke with Attisha about what this means for residents and businesses here.

GlobeSt.com: How does San Diego's digital infrastructure compare to other Southern California markets?

GlobeSt.com: What does being a Smart Gigabit Community do for this market, and what does it mean for residents and tenants here?

GlobeSt.com: Where do you see San Diego's digital capabilities heading in the future?

GlobeSt.com: What else should our readers know about the SGC program?

Instant Insights /

Smart Gigabit Status and the San Diego Market

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