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OPERATION: LINK UP |
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Bridging the Digital Divide In Colorado |
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Silverton PUC Hearing: Press Release |
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-------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact: Patrick Swonger FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Town of Silverton Board of Trustees November 23, 2010 Phone: (970)387-5857 Cell Phone: (970) 759-8196 Email: pswonger@vidion.com
MISSING: 16 MILES OF QWEST FIBER OPTIC LINE TO SILVERTON Town and County Seek PUC Relief from Qwest Fiber Optic Divide
On December 14 and 15, San Juan County and the Town of Silverton will host a Colorado Public Utilities Commission hearing concerning Qwest Communications’ 2000 pledge to bring fiber optic technology to that county seat. The hearing pits the tiny town of Silverton and Colorado’s smallest county against the telecommunications giant for failing to reach Silverton with a state-funded fiber optic line by June 30, 2005 as the company vowed to do pursuant to its award of the state’s $37 million Multi-Use Network (MNT) contract.
The complaint alleges that Qwest provides sub-standard telecommunication services to Silverton through a tenuous microwave radio link. Silverton officials note that through the MNT project, the state provided funds for a fiber optic connection to every Colorado county seat, including Silverton. Through this initiative, they say, the state also defined and funded a simple standard for fiber optic connectivity to its municipalities. Colorado taxpayers, the officials note, paid Qwest 37 million dollars and that company was given a lucrative ten-year contract to build and maintain this state fiber optic network. Silverton and San Juan County were never connected, however, leaving San Juan County as the sole exclusion out of 64 Colorado counties.
In the joint complaint, the Town and County observe that Qwest delayed completing the last 16-mile section of fiber optic line to Silverton until after the official close of the project in 2004, assuring local officials and the state that the line would be finished after routine right-of-way issues were resolved. In the five years since the Qwest construction deadline passed, Silverton residents, businesses, educators and government organizations have fought to have the fiber optic connection to their community completed through an ad-hoc group called Operation Linkup.
“From our perspective, Qwest has perpetrated a multi-million dollar bait and switch on our community,” said Patrick Swonger, a Silverton Town Trustee and founder of Operation Linkup. “Qwest unfairly profited at the expense of our future by not completing the last 16 miles of our fiber optic line. Given that current Qwest management stands by that decision, we feel that the PUC is our best hope for addressing the inherent unfairness of Qwest’s inaction. We simply want to join the rest of Colorado on a fiber optic backbone for uniform services and equal economic opportunity. ”
According the Greg Swanson, head of the San Juan County Development Association and Operation Linkup member, “Our very survival as a community is at stake. A reliable fiber optic connection to the rest of the world is just as important to Silverton’s future as any rail line or highway in the past. Our telecom infrastructure must be on an equal footing with all other Colorado counties or our citizens can’t possibly have equal access or a uniform level of service. We believe the economic impact to this community over the last decade has been devastating”
“Qwest claims that they have met the 2000 MNT obligations, but no documentation or sign-off by the state can be found to prove it,” says Jason Wells, Silverton Town Administrator. “According to state records, Qwest was only allowed temporary use of the existing a microwave radio link until June 30 of 2005 when the fiber optic line was to be completed.”
The single microwave radio link provides all of Silverton telecommunications, as it has for nearly fifty years. It‘s the only connection to the outside world for telephones, cell phones and internet services to this isolated county seat. Town and county officials claim this “primitive” telecom infrastructure, without signal path redundancy, has a debilitating effect on local economic growth and business development.
“We’re not second-class Colorado citizens. We’re not willing to be the only county seat left behind in a fiber optic divide,” states Willie Tookey, San Juan County Administrator. “This was a critical technological initiative fully funded by the taxpayers of Colorado in 2000. As an analogy, Qwest was paid to build an information superhighway to Silverton and they barely widened the existing mule trail.”
Pete McKay, a San Juan County Commissioner agrees saying, “We’ve been through ten years of Qwest excuses, delays and now refusal to connect Silverton by fiber optic to the rest of the world. A decade ago our microwave radio system was considered technologically inferior to fiber optic and designated by the state for replacement by 2005. Our county has only fallen further behind since. Through inaction, Qwest has perpetuated a sub-standard level of telecom service to San Juan County citizens, businesses and organizations.”
The PUC filing argues that surveying a community’s fiber optic infrastructure – or lack thereof – is a critical aspect in assessing the uniformity of telecommunication service it receives. When the state issued its 2000 MNT mandate for fiber optic connectivity for every county seat, the complaint asserts, the intent was to reach small and remote counties in order to level the technological playing field across the state. Ten years later the fiber optic gap has only widened for San Juan County and Silverton which remains at the end of an out-dated land-based microwave radio link.
Kim White, Superintendent of Silverton Schools summed up the intent behind the community’s PUC filing against Qwest, “It’s our hope that the PUC will act to protect the interests of our citizens and recognize the inequality of the telecommunications environment in Silverton relative to all other Colorado county seats. It’s absolutely critical to nearly every aspect of our future in Silverton.”
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For more information about this story or to schedule an interview please contact Patrick Swonger at (970) 387-5857 or email pswonger@vidion.com. Additional information is available on-line at www.operation-linkup.org. |
