High speed internet service to all residences and businesses in Bellingham could be quite inexpensive.  What Comcast charges is really highway robbery - and the other services are not much better.  We cannot be too harsh on them as the city licenses them to charge exorbitant rates and in America a company can charge all the market will bear.

However, we have an option that has been in front of us for 20 years.  Internet access could be a public utility and the rates could be a fraction of what they are now.  The Port of Bellingham could do this easily as a service to the community.  The Bellingham Public Works could do it, or the Public Utility District #1 could do it.  Why have they not?  That is the question we should pursue. 

On Thursday, the Bellingham Herald ran a good article titled “Could faster internet bring more local jobs?” by Samantha Wohlfeil.  It is a good primer on the issue.  What is important is to pick up how much of the city has been connected by underground fiber cable now.  The key here is higher capacity glass fiber cable can be fished through right next to the existing cables.

Back in the 1990s, I ran the marketing for Bellingham’s first Internet service provider - Network Access Services, or NAS.  This was before Comcast offered Internet service.  Even back then, we early adapters of the Internet discussed how much sense it would make for the city to provide this service as a utility.  It is just a no brainer. 

We will come back to this issue in a future article.  Meanwhile, Samantha's article provides a good perspective.