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CenterFuse Broadband Feasibility Report <br />CenterFuse can help to get better broadband for businesses in a number of different ways as was <br />described in the on the prior page. <br />2. Consider Providing Technical Assistance for Small Businesses <br />Several businesses expressed the need for help with deploying broadband more effectively inside their <br />buildings. This issue was raised by several downtown businesses located in older buildings where WiFi <br />won't carry through older, thicker walls. But this could easily apply to businesses anywhere in the city. <br />Businesses often don't for help with broadband questions and end relying on whatever ISPs tell them. <br />CenterFuse may be able businesses with this and other technical issues. This might include hiring <br />consultants to help businesses or providing small grants for businesses to find solutions. This solution <br />also likely would lead to a training component so that businesses can learn the basics of how to best use <br />broadband. <br />3. Create Diverse Routing to Ensure Emereencv Resilient <br />As noted in the findings, the city is vulnerable to a major fiber cut since almost all Internet traffic to and <br />from the city passes to the west to Seattle. Currently, City Fiber is the only ISP in the community with <br />diverse routing to the Internet — City Fiber connects both through the east to Seattle, and to the south <br />along US 97 to Portland. The danger of the current routing is that a catastrophic event along the fiber <br />path to the west could cut off Internet access for everybody not .served by City Fiber. Only the handful of <br />customers served by City Fiber would remain in service after a catastrophic event to the west, while all <br />residential customers and most businesses served by Charter and Consolidated could face a prolonged <br />broadband outage. This is an issue shared by many cities in the US and this same situation is likely true <br />for many other cities in the region. The incumbent providers could take advantage of diverse routing — in <br />this case Charter and Consolidated could choose to also route to Portland — but they are electing to not <br />spend the extra money. <br />CenterFuse can lead the charge to implement diverse Internet routing. This might happen in several <br />ways. The simplest situation would be to convince the current ISPs to use a second diverse route. A <br />second Internet path from the city could either follow the path used by City Fiber to Portland or could go <br />east to Spokane. <br />If Charter and Consolidated continue to ignore diverse routing, then CenterFuse can push for other <br />solutions. Most such solutions would mean migrating businesses and residents to an ISP and network <br />that values diverse routing. There are probably a dozen different ways to do this that would include such <br />options as having City Fiber expand its network to more businesses and to serve residences, partnering <br />with a new ISP to build fiber everywhere, or even having CenterFuse fund a fiber network. All of these <br />options warrant additional study beyond the scope of this project. <br />4. Imnrove Residential Broadba <br />While the project focused on business broadband, it revealed key gaps in the residential broadband <br />environment in Ellensburg that impact business vitality and opportunity. Unlike business broadband, <br />which in some ways is better than many other communities, the residential broadband in Ellensburg is <br />not as good as in other competing markets in the state. For example, the nearby cities of Wenatchee, <br />Moses Lake, and Ephrata and surrounding rural areas have fiber broadband available to all residents and <br />Page 12 <br />