I'm catching up from the week, because it's been a busy one. It seems that Bainbridge Island is going to have a fiber optic backbone strung through a sizable portion of the island. This is going to be done by the Kitsap County Public Utility District (KPUD), which means that the backbone will be owned by the public utility. That's important because it won't be owned by AT&T, Qwest, or anybody like that, allowing the possibility of competition among service providers on the backbone. Earlier this week I went to a meeting on creating Local Utility Districts (LUD)'s as a means of financing fiber drops from the backbone to homes and businesses. The basic idea is that you get a bunch of people, say a neighborhood, together and form an LUD. The KPUD will the help the LUD get fiber to the home by helping to arrange financing (the cost of the capital equipment install can be spread out over 20-30 years via a special assessment) and by providing contractors that actually string the fiber, install the switches and do all the other technical stuff that needs to happen. Once this is done, you have 2-6 fibers coming into your home or business. Services that can ride these fibers include 100Mb/sec internet, VOIP, Digital (and analog) cable TV, and probably some other stuff that hasn't been thought of yet. As my 2 year old says, "whoa".