Boadband service should go elsewhere | Letters | March 26

Published 1:39 pm Friday, March 26, 2010

Regarding this Google broadband, I wish your writers would check the facts before printing emotional chatter.

First, the school system already has fiber optic connectivity. The schools on Bainbridge can connect anywhere, anytime at very high speeds to anyone they so choose to allow students to connect to.

The island already has very good broadband service. Has anyone looked into Comcast, KPUD and Qwest to understand what they offer? Or the percentage of households that already have good broadband service available to them? They may not choose to subscribe to it, but it is available.

Has anyone looked into when Verizon will be delivering LTE broadband to the island and its capabilities. How about Clearwire’s 4G network?

Our city administrators are buried in a budgetary and economic mess right now. We need people from City Hall – be they council members or employees – chasing this like we need a hole in the head.

I strongly urge City Council to keep focused on the issues at hand. Let Google take this to a community that really needs it.

A community with, say, half of our $90,000 per household income. A town, maybe, where the unemployment is 12 percent or worse. Yes, let Google go serve a needy community instead of a community that can readily afford any kind of broadband we want to have.

In fact how about we become less selfish and let’s find an under-served community in Washington.

All these busybodies can go put their energy, time and personal wallets to work to help a school system and community that really needs it, not a bunch of elitist that thinks the world owes them.

If you want to have a factual discussion about the realities of what Google is offering and what our real alternatives are, I would welcome a dialogue.

All this is a bunch of rich busybodies on the island that think they are entitled. This false information serves no one.

Mark Lacy

Bainbridge Island