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Celebration of broadband report is premature
The
January 9, 2010
By most measures, a 97.5 percent report of
achievement would be a victory. Recently, the state's broadband mapping report
announced 97.5 percent broadband availability in But the report does not indicate a victory. In
fact, we believe that if you asked 97.5 percent of residents,
not all are convinced that they are sufficiently connected to
high-speed Internet. The state was recently awarded $2.1 million in
federal stimulus grants to further map broadband availability,
and it is critical that the effort reflect the true availability
of broadband and its benefits. Our goal should be to ensure that
Coloradans are sufficiently connected to the Internet; not to
ensure that they can scrounge up any connection. To be fair, the report used the FCC's
definition of "broadband" — a 768 kilobits per second (Kbps)
connection — but I doubt there are consumers who would consider
this an acceptable speed; I know Qwest does not. Also, the report gives equal weight to any
"broadband" technology. While there are areas of To that end, Qwest continues to invest in its
network to deliver a better broadband experience to more people,
and in select areas, connection speeds up to 40 megabits per
second (Mbps). The majority of our Colorado customers can access
speeds up to 7 Mbps — more than nine times faster than the speed
used in the report — and many customers are choosing this speed. For areas where we cannot economically offer
broadband, Qwest supports the use of federal stimulus dollars to
expand broadband. We hope the stimulus package can provide funds
to expand wireline coverage to unserved areas, and we will
consider applying in the future after reviewing the rules and
conditions. Most important, we will not stop working to
get Chuck Ward is Qwest
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