Regional Fiber Consortium

The Regional Fiber Consortium was the first fiber consortium formed as the local governments of the area of central Oregon began developing a plan for fiber access to rural communities.   The Regional Fiber Consortium membership includes Lane and Klamath Counties and the cities of Coburg, Klamath Falls, Lowell, Merrill, Oakridge, Springfield and Westfir.   These local governments negotiated joint agreements with Pacific Fiberlink, now 360 Networks.  In return for permitting assistance and an exchange in lieu of right-of-way fees, the local governments recieved twelve strands of fiber installed in a contiguous strand extending approximately 200 miles from Coburg to Merrill, with points of access in the cities and significant county points along the route.  The local governments joined together to form a local government entity, the Regional Fiber Consortium, to own and manage the asset obtained from 360 Networks.

Since its creation, the consortium has worked with 360 Networks to establish access points and make connections at Klamath Falls and the consortium fiber terminus east of Merrill.

The members of the consortium plan to use this fiber to increase communication opportunities to all the residents along the route and in communities adjacent to the route, as described in the Consortia Program pages, and otherwise.  A representative sample of the agreement leading to the Consortium's acquisition of the optical fiber can be reviewed as an RFC Sample Agreement PDF*.

* PDFs require Acrobat Reader.
Download Reader by clicking the above link or image.