SEQUIM — The completion of the first leg of a major expansion of broadband for high-speed Internet service across the North Olympic Peninsula was hailed at a celebration last week.
Clallam County elected leaders and their representatives; Northwest Open Access Network, or NoaNet; and Port Angeles’ police chief gathered to mark the milestone Friday.
The first link finished in the Peninsula-wide broadband project — a $337,000 project connecting Blyn and Sequim — will benefit the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe from its new library in Blyn to its North Fifth Avenue Jamestown Family Health and Medical Clinic in Sequim.
It also will improve service to the Sequim Library.
“High-speed broadband is the most exciting thing that has happened in law enforcement in my career,” Port Angeles Police Chief Terry Gallagher told about 30 at the Sequim Library.
Those on hand included Clallam County Public Utility District commissioners Will Purser and Hugh Haffner, whose agency assisted in constructing the new link.
Also present: a county commissioner, Mike Doherty; Port Angeles Mayor Cherie Kidd; Sequim City Councilwoman Laura Dubois; Judith Morris, representing U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks — whose 6th Congressional District includes Clallam and Jefferson counties — and Ben Neff, representing the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe.
Gallagher said broadband Internet will allow officers to work faster and more efficiently, enabling them to multitask in their patrol cars, such as checking a motorist’s identification while checking on a city webcam and communicating all at once.
When the system is completed from Brinnon to Port Ludlow and Port Townsend, then across the Peninsula to Neah Bay and Forks, it will facilitate everything from movie downloads to video-conferencing with medical professionals to moving large data files.
NoaNet is overseeing construction of two federal American Reinvestment and Recovery Act grants to bring high-speed Internet access to underserved schools, hospitals, emergency-response agencies, libraries and colleges around the state, and to string the fiber to bring affordable broadband service to thousands of businesses and households.
Mike Henson, NoaNet’s chief security officer, said the Blyn-Sequim segment was built first because it was a relatively easy project and part of the first round funded by two grants.
Both Henson and Angela Bennink, NoaNet marketing director, called it a momentous occasion.
“This is a big day,” Henson said, marking not only the new link but almost 400 miles of broadband deployed in the state so far.
Another 400 miles of broadband infrastructure remains to be completed.
The project will affect 36 counties and 170 communities and create hundreds of jobs in the state, he said, with 2,000 “anchor” public institutions served.
“It’s really going to open up opportunities for all of us as we go through with this,” Henson said.
Morris said Dicks has long supported the project and believes “lives are changed” with broadband.
PUD Commissioner Purser, whose District 1 includes Sequim and Blyn, said the project will benefit public services.
He said broadband helps prevent power outages and will let the PUD monitor its facilities through broadband technology and even have the capacity to build a “smart grid.”
Such a grid would enable the public water and power company to check meters from computers in its main offices without having to send out vehicles and people to read them.
“The library would not be the library” without broadband and a robust Internet, said Paula Barnes, North Olympic Library System director.
Her library system has 76 public computers, and “people are on those computers from the time we open until we close” looking for jobs or doing homework, she said.
Each Clallam County library has wireless Internet access and broadband will help readers download audio and electronic books and research with greater ease, she said.
NoaNet has 12 public utility districts as members, including those in Clallam and Jefferson counties, and a joint operating agency that has served wholesale customers in Washington state since 2000.
Bennink said the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act grants totaled about $184 million, with about $140 million coming from the federal government and the balance from participating NoaNet local communities and governments.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
