Issues - A Technology Infrastructure for the Future of Our City and Our Citizens

Seattle’s reputation as a leader in technology and science innovation is well known and well deserved. From Boeing to Microsoft to Amazon, which have all played a central role in redefining the nature of the global economy in the last half century; to the University of Washington, which is a world leader in research; to the growing concentration of biotechnology firms that are changing our understanding of medicine and health, Seattle has been—and continues to be—at the forefront of key advances that are shaping life in the modern world.

Our role as a technology innovator should be seen as more than a cause for civic pride. It is an engine for economic prosperity for our city and a source of great high-paying jobs—more than 100,000 jobs in Seattle and tens of thousands more in the surrounding region.

Our continued economic vitality depends on our ability to foster an environment where innovation can thrive and technology companies see Seattle as a great place to set up shop.

One key to maintaining our status as a center for innovation is to provide the infrastructure that companies, organizations, universities, governments, and people need to be full participants in the global knowledge economy. But we are in danger of falling behind in a critical aspect of that infrastructure—access to broadband networks for our citizens. Today, two out of five Seattle households do not have high-speed Internet access.

In 2005, the City of Seattle’s Task Force on Telecommunications Innovation released a plan to create a publicly-owned fiber optic network that would provide “sufficient capacity to meet the ongoing information, communications, and entertainment needs of the city’s citizens, businesses, institutions, and municipal government” by 2015.

This is a sound policy that makes clear economic sense. Recent studies show that every dollar spent on broadband deployment yields a ten-fold return and every 10 percent increase in Internet penetration results in a 1 to 2 percent increase in economic activity.

Unfortunately, nothing has been done to make the city’s 2005 plan a reality.

I believe that building a publicly owned, citywide broadband network that delivers true high speed bandwidth to every home in Seattle should be one of this city’s highest priorities.

This investment in a municipal broadband network would deliver a broad range of benefits to the city and its citizens. It would provide the infrastructure that innovative Seattle-based companies need to be successful and it would lower overhead costs for startups. It would make telecommuting more feasible for thousands of people, which would help to ease traffic.

It would also help solve one of the truly pressing problems that our education system faces. At a time when Internet literacy is an essential skill, we live in a city where more than 25 percent of households have no Internet access at all. To ensure that our children have the skills and knowledge they need to be successful as adults, we must ensure that all Seattle schoolchildren have high-speed Internet access.

A feasibility study conducted by the city indicates that we can build a network that provides significantly higher bandwidth to citizens, institutions, and businesses than they have access to today for less than they are currently paying. The study estimated that such a network could be built for around $450 million, paid for by a bond issue backed strictly by revenue from the network itself.

A municipal high-speed network would a key piece of the infrastructure that this city must have if it is going to continue to foster innovation and create great jobs. This is precisely the kind of forward-looking investment that Seattle should be making in its future, its citizens, and its businesses.

As a member of the Seattle City Council, I would push to see that the city moves forward to make this investment in its future.