Bill Virgin: Tacoma must be careful not to be left behind in digital high-speed dust

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/03/30/3124091/tacoma-must-be-careful-not-to.html?sp=/99/261/

Bill Virgin: Tacoma must be careful not to be left behind in digital high-speed dust
March 30, 2014

It may be hard to recall now just what a big deal Tacoma’s Click Network was when it was rolled out in 1997. It wasn’t just the opportunity for the public to have a competitive alternative to the incumbent cable TV company. It was a source of civic pride, a nationally mentioned anecdote that vaulted Tacoma into the conversation about technologically progressive cities. Maybe even better, it was something Seattle didn’t have. Tacoma would seize some of the tech-sector’s sizzle as the “Wired City.”

But 17 years is a near eternity in modern telecommunications — that term itself is a vestige of another age. Some context is useful. When the fiber-optic light was turned on for public use on Click, Amazon was just 3 years old. So was Facebook. Google was a year away.

It’s been a long time since anyone used “the Wired City” in any context, even ironic about Tacoma, the moniker proving to have a short shelf life. Tacoma didn’t become a tech hub because of its high-speed fiber-optic network for data services. While Click did bring some financial benefits to consumers of cable TV services, the competitive landscape is so much broader today, with the high-speed Internet services offered by Click and Comcast helping to cannibalize their own cable TV businesses. And that term high-speed is now relative, under threat not only from faster speeds offered elsewhere but from technology promising the same cord-cutting hitting the cable TV business.

Click Network still uses an exclamation point in its logo and its official material. A very large question mark, and a quantity of them, might be the more appropriate form of punctuation.

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@*&%T* Comcast heah.