Reporter Claire Cain Miller recalled Pres. Obama’s wish, expressed during the State of the Union Address, that Internet service that is fast enough to be useful and affordable enough to be used be extended to every American city. Right now, lack of competition among the big providers means that most Americans have both slower and more expensive Internet service than people in many other countries, a point I made in “Unplugged” back in 2013.
Miller added
There are a few American cities that tie for speed with the biggest cities abroad, according to data from the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute. They include Kansas City (in both Kansas and Missouri); Chattanooga, Tenn.; Lafayette, La.; and Bristol, Va. In each, the high-speed Internet provider is not one of the big cable or phone companies, but a city-run network or start-up service.
There has been some talk by the 2015 mayoral hopefuls about addressing Springfield’s infrastructure needs. Fast, affordable public broadband service, piggybacked on CWLP wires, is one of them.
This article appears in Jan 15-21, 2015.
