I n
South Valley Internet
LOCALLY WIRED
1991, the World Wide Web (WWW), as we know it today,
was born. Transmission was acquired through “dial-up,”
over regular phone lines. Back then, phone companies had a
tiered price format—after a certain amount of time, the price
increased, and you were charged for long-distance calls.
Bob Brentnall lived in South County and didn’t want
to pay for calls to San Jose, so he co-founded South Valley
Internet (SVI), currently headquartered at 95 E. San Martin
Ave., in San Martin. SVI is the oldest local internet provider
and the first, in 1994, to provide wireless internet services
throughout the South County region. He started with 15
subscribers, and twenty-five years later, has thousands in
Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Hollister, and San Martin.
Bob remains the active CEO, but general operations
are in the hands of his daughter, Elise Brentnall,
President and COO. Elise has seventeen years in the ISP/
Telecommunications industry, but she never expected to
work “in the family business. Her degree is in Business
Administration, with an emphasis in Management, from
Slippery Rock University, Pennsylvania. She originally
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GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
Written & Photographed By Craig Lore
planned to stay back east and work in marketing, but
her father lured her back to California. She started out
working in tech companies large and small, including Sun
Microsystems, and has since earned multiple technology
certifications. “I fell in love with technology,” she said.
“I love it. Absolutely love it.”
“SVI provides internet and phone services to both home
and business. Our service offerings have traditionally
included DSL, Metro-E (both provided over copper phone
lines); Point-to-Multipoint Wireless; SVI also offers phone
services, both analog and VoIP, to both businesses and
residents,” Elise said. “Catalyst is SVI’s version of DSL.
Speeds range from 5Mbps to 100Mbps down and vary
depending on distance from the Central Office. Currently we
offer a special program that provides up to 25Mbps for a low
monthly fee.”
Their EoCu (Ethernet over Copper) product is for
businesses: “EoCu minimizes the possibility of a complete
failure by overbuilding the solution and adding additional
copper loops to provide reliability and redundancy, we
WINTER 2020
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