With the release of the city of Seattle’s community broadband feasibility study, media outlets turned to ILSR and our own Christopher Mitchell for context, and to help uncover what can be done to help improve connectivity for all Seattleites.
The same week, Christopher was invited to the city by Upgrade Seattle to help launch their initiative. Below are some selected publicity highlights from Seattle.
KUOW’s “The Record” with Ross Reynolds. How can Seattle get affordable broadband Internet
KEXP’s “Mind Over Matters” with Mike McCormick. Video is below. “What is Seattle’s Next Step?” You can also listen to the Audio version here.
GovTech: Colin Wood interviewed Chris for his June 12 article Muni Broadband Goes Mainstream.
“You don’t just want better Internet access,” Mitchell said. “You want to know for whom and at what cost. Is your problem connecting low-income populations? That requires different thinking than if you’re just trying to attract some high-tech businesses to your town.”
CrossCut.com: Amelia Havenec covered the lunch & learn conversation between Chris and Upgrade Seattle organizer Hollis Wong-Wear. Following setbacks, municipal broadband supporters continue urging action
“The focus should be on the people who are not connected, the people who are left behind,” Mitchell responded. “Low income people pay $10 a month for Comcast. But you can only connect one device per household. To make sure everybody has a basic connection at home, there’s a $5 million budget to bring one-gigabit, fiber-to-the-premises internet access to tens of thousands of single-family homes in Beacon Hill, Central District, and Queen Anne. With all the transportation planning right now, it’s a good time to identify a fiber conduit in the ground.”
GeekWire: Taylor Soper interviewed Chris as well. The two talked about how the debate over municipal broadband echoes the debate over whether to electrify cities in the 20th century. Municipal broadband in Seattle? New group lobbies city for public Internet
“The big electric companies had formed into giant monopolies, not unlike the monopolies we deal with today with Internet,” Mitchell said. “They repeatedly claimed that local government could not operate a municipal electric grid and said it would end up in failure and disaster. As you know in Seattle, that’s not true. We’ve seen local government take technology of the day and craft it so everyone benefits from it.”
This article is apart of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here
