Viewpoints: Letters / Opinions
Yes to Prop 2
By Carlene Dixon
September 28, 2019
Saturday PM
Low Earth Orbit Satellites (LEOS) are the newest technology, however, they still have a way to go in terms of speed, latency, and reliability. While I agree that LEOS are the future, we are nowhere near a point of abandoning terrestrial-based broadband. Need for bandwidth will only continue to increase as humanity becomes more connected in day-to-day life, and abandoning ideas of diversifying our pathways to metropolitan servers would be a shot in the foot for Ketchikan. Other communities in Alaska recognize this and are actively researching and building new routes for fiber to the lower 48.
This goes far beyond “petulance” toward competitors. Building new pathways to increase redundancy promotes fair business. Take a look at communities in Alaska that only have one internet service provider and compare their broadband prices to communities with multiple service providers. You will see that they will pay many times more per megabit of internet than a community like ours.
This revenue bond will be paid back through COST SAVINGS, not through taxes or rate hikes. The reason KPU has to go to the voters for a revenue bond is because KPU is owned by the City of Ketchikan. KPU is, in essence, a community-owned and supported company, which means the community-members (a.k.a. the stakeholders) have a say in what they do. Voting YES on Prop 2 means you’re supporting the economic and technological security of our community. It means you are supporting fair market and low prices. It means you are supporting back-up pathways in case of natural disasters or other outages. It means you are voting YES to community progress!
Carlene Dixon
Ketchikan, Alaska
Editor's Note:
The text of this letter was NOT edited by the SitNews Editor.
Received September 26, 2019
- Published September 29, 2019
Related Viewpoint:
 VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 2; THIS FIBER OPTIC PROPOSAL IS SO SILLY IT IS STUPID By David G Hanger
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