IP Democracy: Seattle Task Force Proposes Municipal Fiber Strategy

Today, the city of Seattle, one of the nation’s high-tech centers, will take the debate over municipal broadband in large U.S. cities to another level. This afternoon the city’s Broadband and Telecommunications Task Force is expected to release a report that, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “contains a number of bold recommendations”, including support by the city of a fiber optic network.

As P-I’s John Cook reports:

“Seattle cannot afford to dawdle,” Steven Clifford, chairman of the task force and the former chief executive of King Broadcasting Co., wrote in a draft report. “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,” he said. “What Seattle and all cities will need is a big, big pipe capable of 25 to 100 megabits (per second) each way.” Although the capital costs are high, Clifford said, the total cost per megabit makes fiber the cheapest and most compelling system they studied.

But the report is not expected to propose a rapid deployment of ubiquitous fiber.

“We did not recommend to go ahead and fiber Seattle tomorrow,” [Clifford] said. “There may be some new technologies emerging that will allow you to get fiber to the neighborhood and have some other hop to the home, other than fiber, that can still give you the fat pipe.”

The strategy proposed in the report would have the city leverage its existing fiber infrastructure.

Task force member Ron Johnson, vice president for computing and communications at the University of Washington, said the city is well positioned with an existing fiber optic network According to the report, more than 450 miles of fiber optic cable runs through Seattle. “We have fiber in places that most people don’t,” Johnson said. “Most of the people involved in this process saw that as an extraordinary asset.”

The report’s authors are clearly concerned that Seattle will lose its world-class status as a high-tech center.

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, Johnson said. “There are areas of the globe that are light years ahead, and Seattle should want to be among the global leaders,” he said. “Without the city playing any role and without taking the initial steps we outlined, other cities are going to fare much better because there will be more robust competition,” Clifford said.

Not surprisingly, the two incumbent broadband network providers disagreed with the Task Force’s recommendations.

“Our view is that incentives for us, as an existing broadband provider with the network and resources already in place to operate in Seattle, would be far less expensive and far faster to market than attempting to create a new telecommunications system,” Comcast Senior Vice President Len Rozek wrote. Qwest wrote that it would prefer that the city let the market for broadband develop in an “open and unfettered environment.”

Whether and how the city would pursue a partnering strategy for the fiber network remains to be seen.

Johnson believes it’s unlikely that Comcast or Qwest would cooperate with the city on a new fiber-optic network, but he said a third-party provider or non-profit entity could be attracted to the opportunity. The city could operate its own network, although Johnson said he would prefer a partnership with a telecommunications provider.

Posted by Mitch Shapiro on May 24, 2005 2:15 PM to IP Democracy