Tag Archives: wireless

Videos: Maybe revisit lowering millage rate @ LCC 2020-08-10

There was pushback on

lowering the millage rate at the Lowndes County Commission Work Session yesterday morning.
They will decide this evening at 5:30 PM at the Regular Session.

The Commissioners, like some of the public, also wanted to know when there will be a new County Clerk.
Answer, from the former County Clerk, Paige Dukes, who is now the County Manager:
not yet; maybe next meeting (two weeks from now).

The $0.9 million low bid from Reames for road paving and a box culvert got no discussion from Commissioners.

The

Scruggs Company was offered a special exception to the Comprehensive Plan;
one that actually makes sense.

Yes, the
Copeland property
backs up to PCA.

The

Verizon tower got no questions from Commissioners.

Below are links to each LAKE video with a few notes,
followed by a LAKE video playlist.
See also the

agenda and board packet,
and the
millage rate hearing at 5PM today (Tuesday).

Packet: $0.9 million paving project, reduction of millage rate, 3 small rezonings @ LCC 2020-08-10

For the Monday morning Work session and Tuesday evening voting Regular Session,
the Lowndes County Commission has
only one item that has “BUDGET IMPACT” in its agenda sheet, but it’s a doozy:

Cost What
$899,744.40
Ridgecrest, Woodland and Glenview Paving & Drainage Project
$899,744.4 Total

The agenda sheet says:

Lowndes County solicited bids for Ridgecrest, Woodland and Glenview
Grading, Drainage, Base and Paving. The project will consist of
Grading, Drainage, Base and Paving of Ridgecrest and Woodland and
the installation of a box culvert under Glenview Drive. Vendors
present for the pre-bid meeting held on July 21, 2020, were James
Warren & Associates, Southland Contractors, Reames & Son
Construction, Rountree Construction, and The Scruggs Company. Three
bids were received on August 4, 2020.

Here are the bids:

[Bids, NC-TIA 2019-04: Ridgecrest Street and Woodland Drive]

Bids, NC-TIA 2019-04: Ridgecrest Street and Woodland Drive

Where is that?
South of the west end of W Savanna Ave, near I-75 Exit 16.

[Google map: Ridgecrest Street & Woodland Drive]


Google map:

Ridgecrest Street & Woodland Drive

Ah, yes, I got stuck in traffic there not so long ago,
trying to get around a stopped train.

We know this much because LAKE obtained a copy of the board packet
through an open records request; it’s
on the LAKE website.

I suppose if we rummage around enough we’ll find details of
NC-TIA 2019-04 somewhere on the county’s website.

Here is
the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, AUGUST 10, 2020, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2020, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

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Georgia Broadband Deployment Initiative 2019-04-26

Good about the Georgia Broadband Deployment Inititative (GBDI): wired and wireless, and they are actively doing something, including mapping.

[Map Phase 1]

Map Phase 1

See also interactive Phase 1 map.

Dubious: stakeholders are only “private telecom
and cable providers, local government, and electricity cooperatives”.

Where are universities, technical colleges, doctors and hospitals, local businesses, nonprofits, and the people?
Supposedly “Community partnership will be a central component”,
but where is the community in GBDI’s plans?
Where are the other stakeholders?
Where are the public hearings?

Maybe that’s farther along in their timeline: Continue reading →

AT&T can do gigabit when competing with Google Fiber



A challenge gets the
incumbents beyond selling slow and expensive as long as they can.
Both these networks will use fiber optics, and that plus fast wireless to
reach everybody else would be very interesting.

Roger Cheng wrote for Cnet yesterday,

AT&T attempts to out-Google Google in Austin fiber race:
The telco says it will begin offering its “GigaPower” service to Austin and surrounding areas this year, with further expansion and a 1-gigabit connection planned in 2014. But how much will it cost?

The company said on late Monday that it would launch its “GigaPower”
super-fast home Internet service on December 1 in Austin, a city
that Google has said it would deploy its own speedy Google Fiber
service.

GigaPower would start with speeds of 300 megabit per second, or
roughly 40 times the speed of the average U.S. Internet home
connection, before upgrading customers to 1 gigabit per second next
year. Google also plans to offer its own 1-gigabit connection some
time next year.

By moving first Continue reading →

Softbank buying Sprint buying Clearwire for better Internet

About nine months ago

Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son said he wanted to buy Sprint


because he was tired of poor U.S. Internet service.
The FCC has approved that merger.
And Clearwire shareholders have approved Sprint buying Clearwire,
which will provide more spectrum for Sprint to work with.
Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T competing in 4G LTE or faster
wireless Internet services would almost be like a real market!
Today’s the day.



Jordan Crook wrote vfor TechCrunch Monday,

After 9 Months, The Softbank-Sprint Merger Will Be A Done Deal On July 10,

“SoftBank Corp. will invest approximately USD 21.6 billion
(approximately JPY 1.8 trillion*) in Sprint Nextel Corporation and
currently anticipates consummating the transaction on July 10, 2013
(EDT).”

Continue reading →

I don’t want to say we don’t have broadband —Andrea Schruijer @ VLCIA 2013-02-19



Unfortunately, Andrea Schruijer made clear that much of what
had just been said at the

the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013
hadn’t been heard.

It’s not that we’re saying we don’t have broadband.
We have connectivity; that’s not the issue.
We have great partners that help us with that.

Well, local “leaders” need to learn to say it:
“we don’t have broadband!”
Many of the people of Lowndes County and even more in the surrounding
counties

can’t afford Internet access at all, as Idelle Dear told the Lowndes County
Commission.
And the “great partners” Ms. Schruijer bragged about will never provide
it for us without a lot of prodding, because AT&T and Verizon
and Sprint and Comcast and Mediacom don’t think anything outside the
Atlanta beltway has enough population density to bother with,
and even in Atlanta all people get is U.S.-style low-speed low-reliability
Internet connectivity that would never even be on sale in Japan or France
or Korea or Finland or even Estonia.



Tom Call illustrated my point when he

talked about a residential project
where a provider installed cable and claimed they were providing voice, TV, and Internet access, but then didn’t actually have the capacity for Internet
when people started using it.

Continue reading →

Broadband top priority, education, jobs, quality of life —Angela Crance @ VLCIA 2013-02-19



Angela Crance,

Special Assistant to the President of
Wiregrass Georgia Technical College,
told

the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013:

I’m here for Wiregrass, and
we just want to thank you for bringing this up and making it a top priority
for the community [looking at

Lowndes County Commission Chairman Bill Slaughter]
and

the Industrial Authority….

 

 

It’s definitely a priority for us….
Only 14% of our citizens have a college degree
and we need 70% to have a college degree within ten years.
To be able to accomplish that we’d better have

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