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THE DIGITAL WASHINGTON

In 2000, Washington State, Governor Gary Locke signed into law SB 6675 which empowers public utility districts (PUDs) to extend fiber optic Internet connections to homes and businesses in their local service areas. The bi-partisan support for this important legislation emphasized the need to give local communities the essential tools and platforms for future economic development, especially in high-value knowledge industries. 17 PUDs across Washington are moving forward with innovative projects to construct high-performance fiber optic backbones in under served areas of Washington. Support by US Rep. Norm Dicks has been instrumental in allowing public purpose fiber to be leased by the Bonneville Power Administration to the Northwest Open Access Network (NOANET) for the regional build-out of their OC-192 WDM backbone.

In Grant County, over 6000 homes and businesses are in the process of being connected to the gigabit Internet via Grant County PUD's Zipp Net . The Zipp Net is the wholesale access platform for 11 competitive super Internet service providers (ISP). These ISPs retail an array of value added services directly to consumers and businesses such as video on-demand, voice over IP, and web services. While some telecom firms claim that most end users would never use more than 1mb of bandwidth on average, in Grant County, burst traffic averages 20-40mb for around $50 per month. Gigabit Ethernet and other disruptive technologies are making optical residential connections to the Internet a reality today. As a result of the PUD investment, many Grant County residents are bullish about their economic future since they boast one of America's best locally controlled networks. Through these strategic public private investments, rural Washington State and future generations will be well positioned to take advantages of opportunities not yet defined.

Through a research contract administered by CIS, the UW has supported efforts in Kitsap County to harness the power of the new Kitsap Public Utility District's 82-mile NOANET backbone. Since April, the UW has worked with Kitsap officials representing five municipalities and two Native American tribes to find an innovative approach to accelerating last mile connections to the KPUD Net. The final product of the CIS/LCT work was a multijurisdictional policy symposium held on July 30th in Bremerton, " Connecting Kitsap with the Knowledge Economy: Where do we go from here? " The conference featured demonstrations from leading technology firms such as Microsoft, Boeing, and Cisco as well as participation from Washington State Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and US Representatives Norm Dicks and Jay Inslee as well as Washington State legislators. As in Grant County, Kitsap officials look to the gigabit Internet to accelerate future economic growth through locally based knowledge enterprise.