Mission Statement:

The Trinity County Wireless Initiative will provide internet access sold at cost to the population of Trinity County while expanding an internal wireless network to provide backbone service throughout the county. Trinity County Wireless Initiative will be run by members of the community who have a vision for a county that is more in touch with the rest of the world.

The Trintiy County Problem:

Trinity County is a small sparsely populated county in Northern California with an extremely mountainous terrain. Our population is rather poor and broadband is often more expensive than individuals or even businesses can afford. Trinity County does not return enough profit to warrant the installation of broadband facilities by telco companies. If high speed internet does come to the county on a large scale, it will only cover Weaverville.

Trinity County Wireless Intitiative's Solution:

Broadband in itself is not that expensive. ISPs are usually in it for the money, we aren't. Velocity Technology is a non-profit cooperative that will sell internet service to its subscribers at cost. The only hopes of getting this service to all members of Trinity County is to use wireless radio link technologies. 802.11, a set of wireless network standards, is widely used and is quite affordable; a "backbone" built with this hardware would be within Trinity County's grasp. This technology does have its drawbacks. Since the radio frequency is rather high (2-5 gigahertz), the radio waves will tend to "get stuck" in obstacles like trees, mountain tops, buildings, etc., so it is unsuitable for anyone without a view of a mountain top repeater; this is known as "Line of Sight." This is where a lower frequency will come into play (900 megahertz). This lower frequency range will tend to "bounce off" or "go through" obstacles, making it easy to get service into a canyon or go through a forest. This is known as "Non line of sight."