Archive: Opinions

Kudos to County Representative Pat Pryor and this Board for pushing forth a rural broadband initiative and supporting the recent NYS grant. My neighbors and I look forward to joining 21st century communications; we hear that the Internet has some cool stuff and we are sick of hearing the beeps and doodlebops of dial up.

However, my neighbors are going to have a problem if rural broadband is not offered to North Lansing sooner rather than later. Many of my neighbors have 2 year contracts with Hughesnet or other satellite Internet service providers. These contracts will expire this spring or summer.
If Clarity's solution does not come on line before then, many of them will be forced to renew their contracts and have to pay an exorbitant amount for subpar service and be locked in for an additional two years. They would then not be able to sign on to the much more affordable and superior service Clarity has to offer.

Additionally, I offer nothing but contempt for Time Warner’s unwillingness to work with residents in the North Lansing area that are only a short distance from their service drop points.

I was fortunate enough to get out of my contract by contacting some government offices that oversee rural broadband but it took several months to do so.  However, my neighbors, many with children or limited incomes, could not.  Many are stuck with this service and pay a crazy amount for internet that connects often below 300K down and never goes higher than 700K.  At its worst Time Warner is at least 1-5mb down and does not have a daily download limit.

I would like to ask the Town Board to encourage Clarity to expedite service to North Lansing as paying customers await!

Respectfully submitted,

Daniel Ferguson
Lansing

v9i11