![Velocity teaser image] (https://github.com/jwaugh/VelocityFiberOptic/blob/master/Resources/images/Velocity-teaser-1.jpg)
![Fibermap for Level 3 Networks] (https://github.com/jwaugh/VelocityFiberOptic/blob/master/Resources/images/Level%203%20Fibermap.png) ######(SOURCE:http://www.level3.com/~/media/files/maps/en-network-services-level-3-network-map.ashx)
West Virginia is basically 100% fiberless and people sit around and wonder why we aren't moving forward in any areas of life, and are instead, moving backwards in many ways. If we keep living life in the slowlane we are going to continually be left behind until someone makes a change. I think this change can be found by being connected to the rest of the country at the quickest possible speeds with room for upgrading later. I'm talking about a 100 GIGABIT PER SECOND network, here. When this thing is done, it will enable every single house in Weston the opportunity to have information delivered at the speed of light directly into their home. The biggest advantage of this is not having to hear children, spouses, or guests complain about how they can't do what they want to do. The fact is, we have moved into a digital lifestyle, and the ones complaining about it, are the people that remember before the computer came out and lived their entire childhood/teenage/early adult years without cell phones even being seen or a thing.
We have come a long way from that luddite kind of thinking, I hope. I think it's time we embrace change BEFORE everybody else for once. Fiber isn't going away, and I'm not even EARLY in my proposal to lay this infrastructure now. This has already been successfully rolled out by many municipalities, Ammon, Idaho being the best example I've seen to date. The video can be found in the sources folder. {ADD LINK TO IT HERE INSTEAD}
##ABSTRACT ###What's down?
- Weston's numbers, for the most part, are down.
- Tax revenue for the city to keep it's infrastructure running is down.
- Business income is down.
- Internet speed is down.
- Ambition to make change happen is down.
- Businesses can't keep their doors open.
- Nobody is coming to this city looking to settle down, but people are most certainly leaving to look for opportunity elsewhere.
- In the past 50 years, we have lost 50% of our population. We are down from 8,000 to 4,000 in our county seat of Weston.
- We need something to bring back the numbers and make people want to live and work here.
That's where the last item on this list, "internet speed", comes into play. It's the worst possible kind of statistic to have "down" in this world we live in.
The solution is fiber optic infrastructure being owned by the City of Weston. It makes a lot of financial sense, as it's a very good way to invest into something that will bring money back in and defray other costs of running a city by having a little bit of guaranteed revenue coming in from another project.
I understand the city is not allowed to own anything, at least before homerule, now that we have that to look forward to in next July/August, I think this is the perfect time to start discussions about what we can do in a year when this new rule goes into effect. We need to be prepared and have a course of action planned.
Creation of an optical fiber network beginning with linking city/county/state/US departments the moving on to adding medical infrastructure, law firms with courthouses and homes with a direct connection to a hospital and service anytime, anywhere. Imagine doctors with specialties coming from different geographic areas to look at your charts and diagnose you with telemedicine. :) Imagine your sick child staying home from school and watching his class via a virtual reality app created by the school to allow sick children or children who must be absent to still attend their classes?! :) AMAZING! Imagine connecting to anybody else within the network with a TEN GIGABIT connection! Literally 100 people watching 4K movies all day every day couldn't max that pipe out! TEN GIGABITS!!!!!