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CenterFuse Broadband Feasibility Report businesses elsewhere can get fiber broadband. Most businesses want people to be able to work from home at least some of the time—and they want employees and family members to have access to fast, reliable Internet for leisure as well as for school and work. About one-third of homes in the city say that their broadband connection is not adequate for working from home or tackling schoolwork from home. The quality of broadband immediately outside of the city limits is dismal. Businesses will judge the broadband environment in Ellensburg to be subpar, even with the availability of fiber for businesses. Market demand for better broadband is strong. As part of the study, we looked at residential market demand. We conducted a statistically valid random residential survey by telephone that asked about the current state of broadband with a target accuracy of 95%, plus or minus 5%. Following are the key findings from the telephone survey: • 85% of residents have a wired home broadband connection today, which is below the national average of more than 90%. • A surprising 35%of residents are still buying broadband using DSL from Consolidated. This is significantly higher than in most other cities. The survey didn't dig into this issue, so we can't infer why a high percentage of homes remain on Consolidated DSL. We heard often that broadband is much better today than it was just a few years ago, so the high share of DSL might reflect how people felt about Charter in the past. That supposition is bolstered by seeing that 4% of residents in the city are buying broadband from fixed wireless and another 4% are buying satellite broadband–a sign that people don't trust Consolidated or Charter. If Charter is not available to all homes in the city, in some cases Consolidated DSL may be the only option. • 46% said they are still buying a traditional cable TV package, which is significantly lower than the nationwide average, which was just under 65% at the time of the survey. • 38% of households are still buying telephone landlines, which is slightly higher than the national average. • 22% of respondents are unhappy with broadband speeds. 18% are unhappy with customer service. 29% said they were not getting good value for the price they pay for broadband. 18%of respondents expressed overall dissatisfaction with their current home broadband provider. • 37% of survey households have somebody working from home at least part time. Before the pandemic we rarely saw this percentage higher than 10%. More than one-third of those 37% of homes said the home broadband connection was not good enough to reliably work from home. • 36% of homes with school-age children said that the home Internet was not adequate to support online schoolwork. • 63% of survey respondents support the idea of community leaders prioritizing better broadband. 64% supported the idea of the city working to improve broadband infrastructure. There are Other Broadband Gaps The predominant way that broadband has historically been judged is by considering download speeds. • But there are other factors that should also be considered in looking at the broadband environment in the community. Upload Speed Gap. The pandemic uncovered a new broadband gap where residences and businesses began caring about upload speeds. Upload speed measures how fast data can be sent from a user's computer to the Internet. Good upload speeds are needed for connecting from home to a school server, Page 8