EDMONDS – Imagine downloading a DVD movie in four seconds or weighing in on a City Council debate without leaving your home.
Or consider being able to download shows to your television – at any time, without needing to record them – and paying less money for the service than you’d pay for standard cable.
It could happen for Edmonds residents.
The city is on the verge of lighting up its new fiber-optic broadband network, which can deliver phone, high-definition television and Internet services at speeds that far surpass DSL or cable technology.
“The potential for the program could be unlimited,” Edmonds Mayor Gary Haakenson said.
But don’t cancel your ISP just yet.
The fiber-optic network is like a new freeway with no onramps. People won’t be able to tap into it until the city decides how it wants to market the new system.
Fiber-optic lines are made from long, thin strands of pure glass about the diameter of a human hair. They can transmit large amounts of data at high speeds. The technology has so much bandwidth, several carrier companies could provide their own services using the same network.
The city could make money by selling access to its network to carrier companies.
Instead of having one cable company and one phone company to choose from, Edmonds residents may someday have several choices of phone, television and Internet providers – and that could drive down prices for those services, said Rick Jenness, an Edmonds Internet technology consultant and a member of the city’s Community Technology Advisory Committee.
“If you make it such that people received broadband for $15 a month, then everybody is going to have it,” he said. “Once you have it, you’ve got the whole universe to explore.”
Other communities in Snohomish County have fiber-optic networks. However, Edmonds is the only city with plans to possibly open its network for commercial use, Jenness said.
“If you put in the communications infrastructure, it’s going to be a magnet to attract the kind of business and people you’d want to live in Edmonds,” he said.
City officials have been talking about fiber optics for years.
Jenness first discussed the issue with Haakenson about six years ago, after Jenness’ daughter showed a Power Point presentation with embedded video to her classmates for a school project. The young boy who was next to present his project had only note cards for visual aids.
“What struck me is he did a great job with his, but he was ashamed of his own work,” Jenness said. “You could see it in his eyes. It broke my heart. It hit me there was this divide, kids who had exposure to (the Internet) and others who didn’t.”
City Councilwoman Mauri Moore made fiber optics an issue when she ran for office in 2003. Moore, a longtime television news producer, wanted to improve the local government cable channel.
Bart Preecs, a Web analyst, told Moore a fiber-optic system would solve her problem and many more. In 2004, Moore pushed for the creation of the Community Technology Advisory Committee, with Preecs appointed as chairman. The committee began researching ways to bring fiber optics to the city.
Then the city lucked out. In 2005, the Washington State Department of Transportation installed fiber-optic lines from I-5 to the Edmonds ferry dock for surveillance cameras at the ferry terminal.
In exchange for giving the state right of way for the broadband lines, the city got ownership of 23 fiber optic strands – saving the city at least hundreds of thousands of dollars, Edmonds Administrative Services Director Dan Clements said.
Meanwhile, the Community Technology Advisory Committee learned that another group – the Fiber Consortium of Seattle – had installed fiber-optic lines from downtown Seattle to Shoreline. The group had planned to extend its line into Snohomish County, but its progress was impeded by roadwork on Highway 99.
The Edmonds committee purchased the consortium’s fiber-optic line and then paid to connect that line to the fiber optics installed by the state.
“The biggest thing that is unusual about the Edmonds program is this is community driven,” Clements said. “We have an outstanding group of residents who feel very strongly about this project.”
A Utah-based consultant is studying how the city can best use the network.
“The big picture is fabulous,” Moore said. “It’s the first new revenue stream for the city of Edmonds, and it really has the potential to help our bottom line quite a bit.”
Internet service providers don’t release how many broadband customers they have, so it’s unknown how many people in Snohomish County already use high-speed Internet.
However, Washington has more broadband users than most other states in the country, Comcast spokesman Steve Kipp said.
“It’s a very technically savvy state, people are highly educated, so you get a lot of people who want to have that access,” Kipp said.
Other cities, such as Woodway, have already expressed interest in hooking into Edmonds’ system, Haakenson said.
“It’s the technology of the future, No. 1,” Haakenson said. “Secondly, it could be a big revenue producer for the city, and we just have to decide how that’s going to shake out.”
Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.
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