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CenterFuse Broadband Feasibility Report businesses due to fiber expansion undertaken by the local municipal PUD electric companies. Looking to the west, the broadband in Seattle and surrounding communities is faster, with ISPs like Comcast offering faster residential broadband than is provided by Charter in Ellensburg. Businesses that will consider relocating will care about the overall broadband environment and not just the broadband that is available to businesses. Employers want to have the option for employees to work from home. They care that employees and their family can enjoy the educational and other important benefits of good broadband. Businesses considering Ellensburg might be scared off by residential broadband that is not as good as in other markets. As mentioned earlier, there are numerous ways that CenterFuse could advocate for better residential broadband. Following are some of the ways CenterFuse could help promote better residential broadband: A. Enhance Residential Fiber Networks Bother Charter and Consolidated could do better. There are a number of ways that each ISP could improve broadband in Ellensburg, and CenterFuse encourage the incumbents to do better: • The speed test results and surveys indicate that there are likely physical or electronics impediments in the Charter network that are creating pockets of the town where broadband is not as good as elsewhere. CenterFuse could lobby directly, or join with others in the community to push Charter to fix network problems. You might undertake gathering more speed tests to document the problem. However, it's likely that Charter knows about its network problems and weaknesses. • Today, Consolidated still holds a significant market share in the city even with DSL technology. In most cities the cable company has gotten a much larger share of the market than Charter has achieved in Ellensburg. There is no realistic way to make Consolidated DSL much better. There are newer DSL technologies that could improve DSL broadband speeds to as much as 80 Mbps. But such upgrades are expensive and telephone copper is a dying technology. Consolidated is already serving businesses with fiber close to a number of residential neighborhoods. Even today the company will provide fiber to a residence, but only at the same high rates charged to businesses. Consolidated could reach a number of residences without a costly construction program. Interestingly, Consolidated is building fiber to serve residential customers in many other communities around the country. But the corporation doesn't have the financial ability to build fiber everywhere. Consolidated is like all ISPs and will pay the most attention to communities that can convince it that building fiber is in its best interest. CenterFuse could work with Consolidated to help it find ways to justify expanding fiber in Ellensburg. B. Consider a Public-Private Partnership with Consolidated Consolidated is new to Ellensburg, having acquired the market from FairPoint in 2017. Since the purchase, Consolidated is reported as doing a great job of bringing better broadband to the Page 13