I think switching to an underground cable is a great idea. There is less chance of the wires being destroyed by animals and the weather. I think that having them underground helps keep the skies clear, and overall makes our town look better as a whole. [part removed.]

Dave:

They will only switch to underground if people are willing to pay for it. Per the article 80% of services to homes are above ground.

Just as we moved from dial-up to DSL to high-speed Internet and all kinds of new services came into being I am in favor of this change to fiber. There has been a national plan for gigabit cities. Many are outstripping us now. San Leandro, Santa Monica, Tennessee. No reason Atherton cannot be a model within Silicon Valley. Mike has done extraordinary work in this area. It will benefit the town, the library and the community. Full disclosure: I sit on the tech fiber subcommittee. Let's see the light.

High Speed Raid (HSR) is justified by similar feel good notions: Rail economically transformed the nation; we need to rebuild that infrastructure. Europe has HSR and it works for them; we need it too. The congestion on the roads is too great; HSR will reduce traffic. Climate change is going to kill our descendents; we can be more environmentally friendly with rail. The airports have nowhere to expand; HSR will reduce demand on the airports.

The list goes on and on. Yet none of the justifications pencil out when compared to the HSR cost -- over $60 billion! The voters got suckered (well, 51% of them did) with these feel good notions and we sit here today looking at the light at the end of the tunnel ...

Fiber to the home, with its promise of tremendous bandwidth and speed, promises to shepard in another revolution in the way we produce in our economy. Telepresence and other technologies that would benefit remote workers, for example, would become more widely used. Those kinds of technologies that are not available with dial up and DSL could reduce congestion in our transportation infrastructure and reduce demand on air travel -- perhaps more than would a $60 billion HSR.

Then there's the justification of introducing another provider, reducing the economic impact of the Comcast / AT&T duopoly. These two companies provide mediocre speeds and service at high cost. A third provider would have them step up their game.

How much to implement fiber to the home? Who pays for it? How many homes could be implemented for $60 billion?

Dear Mr. Farmwald,
Thank you for brining fiber to our town. I'm looking forward to the day I can 'cut my coaxial cable' and ditch my current TV/Phone/Internet cable company.

I experienced a similar technology revolution when I 'cut the phone land line' and ditched my 'baby bell' phone company and replaced it with an IP phone provider.

Amandla !!!