Established in 2002, The Consortium has grown to 27 Member Cities and Agencies, has built over 65 miles of core fiber and operates a high speed fiber optic ring network that encircles Lake Washington. In 2017, the Consortium “lit up” the ring, and has been providing high speed transport services since.

In 2020, the Consortium initiated a Project to enhance Ring Operations by adding real-time OTDR fiber optic monitoring to identify faults ind fault locations real time.

As the Consortium looks forward to the future, planning is underway to implement a south spur or loop to connect to members in the Tacoma and Pierce county areas.

Municipal organizations (such as cities, universities, school districts, and public hospitals) can be members of the Community Connectivity Consortium provided that they have a material interest in the work we are doing, have been approved according to the Bylaws, or for members from the previous form of this Consortium who have signed the Consortium’s revised Interlocal Agreement.

The Community Connectivity Consortium began in 2002 with a partnership between the Lake Washington School District, the University of Washington, and the cities of Bellevue and Kirkland. It has grown organically to the south, so that there are now major connection points in Kirkland, Bellevue, Renton, Kent, Auburn, and Tukwila. Consortium goals are to:

• Create a vibrant and competitive region by providing connectivity to meet the needs of our community institutions – hospitals, schools, city halls
• Expand the use of our network to support new applications and needs
• Build resiliency in our network and for our partners by adding redundancy and connecting with other regional networks
• Ensure a sustainable organizational, governance and management structure to make sound, long-term decisions benefiting our members

The Consortium’s regional goals were enhanced by the award of two US Dept of Homeland Security Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grants, one for $600K in 2009 which allowed us to build from the City of Bellevue to City of Renton and an additional grant in 2010 which built the fiber network into the City of Tukwila.

2017 has been an exciting year for the Consortium. Active electronics are now in-place and the network is live with 10GB traffic. Members are engaged in planning activities for connectivity to regional resources in 2018 including internet and cloud services. The network contains six optical nodes placed strategically around Lake Washington.