Cruzio Internet

Cruzio Internet is an independent internet service provider offering domestic and enterprise-level internet services to Santa Cruz County. Cruzio also operates more than forty free Wi-Fi hotspots in Santa Cruz County in order to promote Santa Cruz as a technology hub. These include Wi-Fi hotspots at the Louden Nelson Community Center, Beach Flats Community Center, Plaza Vigil in Watsonville, and various local cafes and restaurants.

Founded in 1989, Cruzio Internet was an early internet service provider working to provide access to the internet to the public during a period of time when the majority of access was still in use by universities and the military. Founders Chris Neklason and Peggy Dolgenos began work on a BBS-style front end for the various Unix network tools which comprised the pre-Web internet. In 1994, after the invention of the world wide web and the release of the first graphical browser, Mosaic, Cruzio's customer base began to grow, which allowed the owners to quit their jobs and focus on building Cruzio, moving from their garage to downtown Santa Cruz.

In 2009, Cruzio had grown enough to reach one of its milestones: the purchase of the defunct Sentinel newspaper building. Cruzio renovated the media icon into a green building with the fastest internet, and from this building was able to introduce new business services, such as a colocation data center, coworking, and rentable office space.

For broadband and enterprise customers, Cruzio Internet's main offering is their internet access and connectivity. Other than traditional broadband offerings, Cruzio is also working to build a high-speed fiber-wireless hybrid network independent of the large national companies. The company has excess fiber capacity in downtown Santa Cruz and is using it to provide high speed wireless internet to nearby facilities.

Cruzio also maintains a backbone of wireless points of presence (POP) on various mountain tops which overlook Monterey Bay, South San Francisco, and Silicon Valley regions. These POPs are fed from the Equinix San Jose Facility, at which Cruzio is cross connected into peering exchanges with an aggregate of content providers, including Google and YouTube. These POPs are protected against power outages with backup generators, and also can be deployed by emergency response crews in the case of an emergency.

Cruzio's capable of offering broadband services to Aptos, Aromas, Ben Lomond, Bonny Doon, Boulder Creek, Brookdale, Capitola, Corralitos, Davenport, Felton, Freedom, La Selva Beach, Lompico, Pajaro, Rio Del Mar, Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley, Seacliff, Soquel, Watsonville, and Zayante.

For enterprises, Cruzio offers colocation data centers with secure facilities at their Santa Cruz headquarters. These data centers include fully-redundant fiber connectivity and power. They also offer dedicated broadband services, with infrastructure-grade broadband offering up to 1 Gbps.

Offered at the company's headquarters in Santa Cruz, Cruzio Internet offers coworking spaces. These spaces offer ergonomic and comfortable office furniture, professional meeting spaces, 1 Gbps symmetrical internet connection, a break room, a nearby organic café, and a bright environment that includes printing, scanning, and faxing amenities.

Cruzio offers various levels of membership:

• Office Space—this membership offers businesses and users full office space in Cruzio's coworking space
• Workstations—this membership offers dedicated and permanent desk space, with lockable storage
• 24/7 Memberships—offers users come and go membership with 24/7 access and related benefits, but without dedicated workspace
• 9-5 Memberships—offers the same perks as the 24/7 membership, but is restricted to use between 9-5
• Meetings and Events—charged by the hour, this membership offers users a meeting space for different types of meetings or gatherings
• Day Pass—as implied, this is a single day pass for the coworking space