PSE may help bring speedy Net access to Kitsap Co.

Friday, June 14, 2002

By GORDY HOLT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

POULSBO -- Puget Sound Energy has emerged as a participant in the effort to bring high-speed Internet service to Kitsap County.

"We want to be in the queue," said Don McDaniel, the company's corporate relations manager.

But, he said, it's too soon to say whether the giant gas-and-electric private utility company would cross industry lines and compete against the telecommunications companies.

"Right now our role here is as a planning partner," he said. "But we like what we hear."

McDaniel's comments came at a meeting of business, government and telecommunications specialists searching for a way to turn Kitsap County into a Silicon Peninsula. Jobs are at stake. Community leaders want Kitsap workers to stay home for a change, not commute to King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.

The county's economic-development effort, therefore, is keenly linked to high-speed Internet service for all county residents and businesses, the better to encourage telecommuting.

"This is a transportation issue," said Ed Stern, a Poulsbo city councilman and chairman of the group that met yesterday.

"Compared to new roads and rapid transit, high-speed Internet is the least costly and the most readily available."

Pulling it off, however, is easier said than done now that the telecommunication's industry has fallen on tough times.

Enter Puget Sound Energy.

"This is nothing more than two toll booths on an existing road for Puget," Stern said.

"They don't have to hire any more linemen. This is what they do, tend wires. What's broadband but tending wires?"

Stern said Puget Sound Energy approached his committee last winter.

"They contacted us, not the other way around," he said.

"I was pleased and happy to receive their call. And so far, our discussions have helped us to refashion some of our thinking. Neither they nor we are interested in reinventing the wheel and having to spend a lot of unnecessary money."

Regulatory issues and the potential for lawsuits by jilted competitors could complicate matters, and give Puget the jitters.

"But we're continuing to explore a relationship," Stern said. "The cities and the county are joined in this goal, and we are looking at some decision by next fall."

Completion of an 88-mile fiber-optic loop through the county later this year will provide the basics for universal service, but not the final connection.

That's the so-called "last-mile" effort that gets high-speed Internet service to everyone's porch.

The basic cable already stretch from the Mason County line north through Bremerton, Silverdale and Poulsbo.

Last on the loop is Kingston.

Kitsap Public Utility District No. 1 is directing the project, which will link the peninsula to a fiber-optic system developed by the Bonneville Power Administration.

P-I reporter Gordy Holt can be reached at 425-453-0324 or gordyholt@seattlepi.com

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