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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us December 12, 2005 GUEST FORUM: AT LENGTH AFN’s mission remains feasible for attracting business By Matt Warshawsky Ashland I have not been following all the details of the problems with AFN, but from my point of view as the president of a business that relies on the Internet and therefore AFN, it appears that the problem with AFN in general is its focus. The focus of AFN seems to be with selling cable and internet services to end users. This is, however, not what sets it apart from other communities with high-speed internet provided by cable, DSL or other means. What sets it apart is the fiber backbone and other advanced features that really cater to businesses and not consumers. This is also the only area that has growth potential. With cable and consumer high speed, there is a limited amount of income possible (which is easily calculated as the total households in Ashland times the average fee per household). Since AFN can’t expand into Talent or other areas, this is an area with a growth ceiling. However, if AFN were instead to concentrate on attracting new businesses to Ashland that would take advantage of the advanced features offered by AFN and not by the cable or telephone companies — the things that make AFN unique — they could generate more income and largely unlimited growth with little or no competition. When we first moved our company here we were attracted by the possibility of large bandwidth available in most locations within the city. Many other small towns had high speed, but none with the bandwidth potential of AFN. Now, we are deciding between locating our servers here in Ashland where we’d have close control over them, or co-locating out of state. AFN gives us the choice, and if they actually ran the service catering towards business needs our choice would be simple. Instead, we’ll probably co-locate out of state, exporting several hundred dollars a month per server out of Ashland instead of into AFN’s coffers. This is the equivalent of about 10 households of internet per month per server we implement. So what was the purpose of AFN in the first place? To provide lower cost cable? I hope not, as I’d imagine I still pay the difference in higher taxes. I hope it was to attract high-tech businesses. High-tech businesses provide the employment desperately needed in this town for younger families trying to afford rising housing costs without destroying the town with heavy industry. This is an excellent vision and a purpose of government. Somewhere along the line though, this focus was lost, most likely in the attempt to justify AFN to the general public. What both AFN and the general public forgot was that not all city services directly benefit the general public. Some, like AFN, encourage other things to happen which in turn benefit the public. Cable and household Internet services should be secondary in AFN’s business plan and only if profitable. The Tidings gives priority to letters on local and regional topics of current interest. It seeks to encourage thoughtful, well-reasoned letters and to discourage personal attacks, repetitive messages and personal disputes. Form letters are not published in the Tidings, nor are letters identified as having been published in other publications. Contributions to the Opinion page should be e-mailed in text-only format to [email protected]. Please include your address and a daytime phone number where you can be reached for confirmation. Letters are limited to 250 words. At Length submissions are limited to 400 words. Submissions may be edited for length, content and clarity. See www.dailytidings.com for our expanded letters and opinion section. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Online Pharmacy Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations Hammocks Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams