Seattle says "Fiber--full speed ahead."

Submitted by acohill on Wed, 05/25/2005 - 14:54

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has an article on a report issued by a City of Seattle task force that concluded that the city has to take broadband seriously, and must begin immediately.

This is a must read article that makes many good points. Rather than rehash them, here are some of them verbatim:

• Broadband networks will soon become what roads, electric systems and telephone networks are today: core infrastructure of society.
• The long-term problems and challenges that Seattle faces are not likely to be solved by wireless... What Seattle and all cities will need is a big, big pipe capable of 25 to 100 megabits (per second) each way.
• If Seattle does not move forward with the network, it could lose its edge to cities such as Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Seoul, South Korea, which have placed big bets on broadband....
  There are areas of the globe that are light years ahead, and Seattle should want to be among the global leaders...

The city task force was originally instructed by the City Council to look at doing a citywide wireless project, but after studying the issue, came back with a different set of recommendations that focused on fiber. One city council member has proposed creating an Office of Broadband to study the problem further.