So I come to you today with mixed news. As we've outlined to you many times, reliable, robust, broadband access is part of proper pandemic response. Not only is a 50 Mbit symmetrical fiber connection, the standard for free low-income connections in Chatanooga, TN, vital for educational purposes, it also helps with telecommuting, telemedicine, helping the unemployed file for unemployment, assistive services, and more. As of now many of our residents still remain unconnected or virtually unconnected.

To this end, we had several meetings with Mayor Fleetwood and several council members, including most recently Hannah Stone. We've convinced many people to start reading the book "Fiber" and are still working on educating the community. Since our arguments are solid, and even more obvious now than before, we were hopeful that at this difficult time your city would do everything in its power to at least try and help. Sadly while PUD-3 is doing exactly that (see link) our Public Works director and IT Directors are still blocking all progress and refusing to use the existing public network to help. They may say they're busy with other tasks, but they have a lot of the same roles for their staff that PUD-3 has, and PUD-3 is taking this seriously as is WCC and others. So why isn't our city?  

However, there is good news too. We have a PUD candidate (Christine Grant) who gets the importance of fiber as we know Commissioner Deshmane has for a long time now. Still, the city made it clear today that they don't consider broadband an important part of the pandemic response. Interm Public Works Director Eric Johnston had a lot to do with this. I will post their sad, canned answer, e-mail below along with my response to them. Please keep calling them, writing to them, and telling them you need this. Also, tell them that it's time to do a nationwide search for a new public works director. How many chances are we going to give this guy? He won't even help during a pandemic! We would be in much better shape if we had fiber, and the city already has an existing network with Dark Fiber waiting to be leased out. What are we waiting for? Ask your council and Mayor Fleetwood. I would love to hear the responses. 

Also, we have started doing proper, 1-hour load testing of connections via the flent network tester and iperf3, uploading a 2.1 GB file (The Ubuntu 18.04 Linux Image) over SFTP to a remote server in California that's hooked up to fiber. This is a much more accurate test than any speedtest.net or similar site as the telecoms prioritize traffic to those sites to give you false positives and make their connections look better than they are. For example, on my $100 a month pretend "100 Mbit down 10 Mbit up Comcast connection, I'm getting about 16 to 25 Mbit down and 3 to 5 Mbit up. The low-income connections are even more worthless right now than before. Good luck filing all of the online paperwork for that pandemic relief on those connections, if you're connected at all.  

One last interesting side note. The WCLS Library system has not installed any outdoor hotspots yet but is allowing 24-hour access to their system and still answering the phone. The connection quality is poor, and you'll have to work in the parking lot, but at least they're doing something. Expect it to take at least 3 months for better connections or rather signal strength. The performance is, of course, based on the wired connection backing it all up. 

The City Library system, which is hooked up to the city's fiber network and under the control of public works and our IT director, isn't doing anything, and as of today (46 days later), there are still no plans to do so. Even though we volunteered to help them set the equipment up for free. The equipment is inexpensive and easy to set up and this means they have no lack of manpower. The citizens of Bellingham are great and talented. Why won't they let trained pros, like us, help our city, during a pandemic? My God, the people literally own the fiber they're refusing us access to. 

E-Mails: 

MY - mayorsoffice@cob.org <mayorsoffice@cob.org>
2:23 PM (1 hour ago) 

Dear Jon,

I received your emails and voicemail.  Thank you for your patience.  There are several high priority projects on which the City is currently working, and there are many moving parts to all.  Broadband is one of those projects that needs and deserves careful thought and planning. 

Please know as soon as there is more information to share or additional information needed, we will be in contact. 

Many thanks,

Brooksana Raney

Executive Assistant to the Mayor

City of Bellingham

360-778-8100

mayorsoffice@cob.org

My incoming and outgoing email messages are subject to public disclosure requirements per RCW 42.56

 My response

So in short, it's fair for me to tell the public that you do not consider Broadband part of the pandemic response, even though it will help us address unemployment, provide educational opportunities, provide for telemedicine and more, and that the COB will not be putting in hotspots in any public locations that the poor and homeless especially rely on, like libraries, or taking any other action at this time, correct? What further consideration is there to do the right thing? All of the countries that have the best pandemic responses also have Universal Broadband access.

Thanks