BANGOR, Maine — A City Council committee delayed Tuesday a decision on whether to create a special committee to explore options for promoting fiber-based broadband Internet access throughout the city.
Instead, the council’s Business and Economic Development Committee asked City Manager Cathy Conlow and legal counsel to prepare a proposal detailing who would serve on the committee and what its charge would be.
With Councilor Joe Baldacci — who proposed the special task force — absent from the meeting for medical reasons, the issue drew supporters and detractors.
“This is a government solution in search of a problem,” said resident Steve Sleeper, who told the committee he gets a download speed of 56 megabytes per second at his home.
Jeff Letourneau, executive director of Networkmaine, told the committee that while the city has fiber-based broadband access in key areas, there are still “glaring, gaping holes.”
The very small and at-home businesses that help drive the state’s economy tend not to exist in the industrial parks and commercial sectors where the service is available, he said.
Additionally, Letourneau told the committee the expansion of broadband could increase property values, provide new tools for education and promote growth services such as telemedicine, which could enable elderly Mainers to see their doctors remotely.
Other Maine cities that are exploring the creation of public-private partnerships to help expand broadband to areas not served by privately owned providers include Rockport, South Portland, Portland, Old Town, Orono, Islesford, Sanford, Ellsworth and Bar Harbor, he said.
“To be quite frank, if you think your competition is just within the state of Maine, you’re not thinking broadly enough,” Letourneau told the committee.
Letourneau addressed the committee at the invitation of Baldacci. He said he was not making a pitch for fiber-based broadband, only offering information on what others have done.
Networkmaine is a unit of the University of Maine System that provides high-speed Internet to the state’s research and education community.
Councilor David Nealley expressed opposition to the prospect of public dollars being used expand broadband access, saying there was once a time when telephones were only in a few wealthy homes in Bangor and they are now considered a necessity.
“Those around the table that know me know that I’m not a big fan of government subsidization of things that over time seem to be working out well in the private sector,” Nealley said.
Nealley, who said he does not oppose the idea of a task force, questioned if fiber-based broadband would serve as an economic driver, noting that areas of the city where the service exists are not filled with businesses.
Others speaking on the issue included state Sen. Geoff Gratwick, D-Bangor, who said he is sponsoring two bills dealing with broadband expansion this session, one of which will deal with telemedicine.
“This is the pathway to the future, and I feel very strongly that I want Bangor to be on that path,” he said.
John Porter, president of the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce, said a Maine State Chamber of Commerce survey showed its members ranked access to broadband as important as access to transportation infrastructure.
The proposed committee, he said, could tackle issues such as zoning and use of public rights-of-way as well as where the service is most needed without tapping public dollars.
“There’s value in the conversation even if it never leads to any public investment,” he said.
Representatives from Internet service providers FairPoint Communications and Time Warner Cable also addressed the committee, offering their involvement in the task force as well as meetings with city officials to discuss economic development.
City officials gave no timeline for when a formal proposal would be returned to the committee for consideration.
“There is nothing to lose by having a task force looking at this and everything to gain,” said Councilor Patricia Blanchette.
Fiber or fiber-optic based broadband Internet differs from conventional copper and cable line in that it relies on the transmission of light impulses along glass or plastic wire to transmit information faster and over greater distances.
In addition to higher speeds, it provides the same upload and download speed, also known as symmetrical service, which is helpful for services such as videoconferencing.
Follow Evan Belanger on Twitter at @evanbelanger.