On with the stupidity
Since everything the City of Portland touches turns to gold, especially when computers are involved, how about spending $500 million (probably more when you sort through the budget lies) to build a municipal fiber optic cable system? It will be a linchpin!
If you've loved the city's "free" wi-fi, you'll love the "cheap" high-speed internet access that the new system will provide. And we'll have the official discussion about it the week of Thanksgiving, when we know you'll give it your full attention.
| Posted at 12:45 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (10)
Ya, and the libraries and the Max are nightmares, too! Oh, wait, those aren't "private", they SHOULD be!
Posted by Paul Charles Leddy | November 16, 2007 1:24 PM
FIOS is a good system and it's something that should be done to connect city offices.
This has nothing to do with offering Internet to the public, it has to do with establishing a data backbone for the city.
Do it now and then they don't have to think about it again for 50 years.
Posted by Jordan Lund | November 16, 2007 1:42 PM
Ashland built a fiber network a long time ago and it works good for them, but they are much smaller.
Posted by Michael | November 16, 2007 1:45 PM
I read just recently Ashland's publicly owned fibre optic system is losing money, and the city council has had to ask for an additional tax levy to fund the losses.
The PDX city council makes no sense. City Hall aspires to borrow millions of dollars to help build a convention center hotel, having failed with the Metro Wi-Fi it now wants a $500 million fibre optic system the majority of Portlanders weren't even asking for, and yet they say they can't find funding for maintaining the roads or helping secure Max. City Hall needs to be turned over to new owners who show a concern for the tax burdens of its citizens.
Posted by Bob Clark | November 16, 2007 2:16 PM
There's already municipal / institution fiber in the tri-County area as a result of the original franchise agreement with Paragon / AT&T / Comcast cable. It's called INET and it's pretty heavily used. It's also cross-connected with the City of Portland IRNE system. In fact, the City of Portland IT Communications group manages most of INET.
I think the proposal mentioned above is more about linking residential areas. Not that this necessarily means it's a good idea.
However, Verizon's FiOS project doesn't reach much of Portland because the city is mostly Qwest territory. However, Qwest is pushing for a cable franchise, so that build-out might allow additional fiber to be run into residential neighborhoods.
Posted by Roamsedge | November 16, 2007 2:41 PM
You KNOW it will be a success if VeraSam is involved. May not be the necessary number of photo ops for him to get involved.
Posted by pdxjim | November 16, 2007 3:00 PM
Yes, it is pretty hard to get a photo op with VeraSam squeezing out of a fiber optic cable to check the fire department response capabilities. But if anyone can find a photo opt, it is SamScam.
Posted by lw | November 16, 2007 5:32 PM
just wait until some PERS summer employee cuts into it with a backhoe. Go figure the dollar amount for that repair
Posted by ace | November 16, 2007 6:37 PM
I just hope we can get some of the worst of the city streets repaved in time to be torn up for this.
Posted by Allan L. | November 17, 2007 7:41 AM
Didnt the Feds give the internet providers billions of $$ a few years back to put new infrastructure such as fiber optics into neighborhoods? And they instead did nothing but line their pockets?
Posted by Jon | November 17, 2007 10:15 AM