RES 043 Draft 01 2020-2022 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

most of the residents. However, the remaining low density of residents living outside of this central area makes it very costly to provide service to those residents. County of Hawaii The County of Hawaii encompasses the island of Hawaii and is the largest of the four counties in area, with approximately 4,029 square miles of land area. It is the second most populated county with approximately 14% of the State's population. Between 2014-2018, 86% of households had a computer and about 75% had a broadband Internet subscription. There are concentrated population centers on the east and west side of the island. However, with more land area than all of the other islands combined, most of the island has a very low population density. The island is dominated by two massive volcanic mountains in the center of the island. With some of the most active volcanoes in the world, it has had frequent lava flows as well as 89 earthquakes with a magnitude of 5.0 or greater between 1974 and 2019. Providing island -wide broadband infrastructure is very challenging because of these active volcanoes, the very rugged lava rock terrain, the low population density, and the long distances between scattered, isolated pockets of homes. The bulk of the island's infrastructure must be placed "in the air" on utility poles. This places the infrastructure at risk with vehicular accidents and during catastrophes such as hurricanes, thus creating a strong need for backhaul network redundancy. Currently, however, the inability to traverse the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park prevents a true fiber ring around the island. There are two off -island cable landing paths near Kawaihae Harbor in West Hawaii. This is of concern because a natural catastrophe affecting that area, such as a hurricane or tsunami, would place the island's off -island connectivity at risk, and thus may impact advanced broadband service offerings. Hawaii County participated in a federal pilot project that provided wireless broadband based on 4G LTE technology for research and public safety applications. During the period between 2005-2009 and 2014-2018, Hawaii County's population increased around 11 %, with Puna experiencing the greatest population gains and Hilo experiencing the greatest population losses. -36-