For cable choice and faster Internet, I'll fix the driveway myself

My main interest is having another high-speed Internet option, because in Sterling Park the current selection is abysmal. I apparently live far from a Verizon "central office," which means my "high speed DSL" is only marginally faster than dial-up. At work we have a T-1 connection to the Internet, so when I come home at night and surf the Web via DSL it's like exiting the Interstate onto a dirt road. Having Verizon competing with current providers of both cable television and Web access is, I believe, my path to a better online future. One way or another, I think I'll end up with a faster Internet connection at home.

From the discussion at the June 14 hearing, I gather the Verizon application for a cable television franchise eventually will be approved by the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors. Verizon will continue to lay the fiber optic cable in many of our communities.

What surprised me at the hearing was that some of the supervisors and citizens spent a great deal of time upbraiding the Verizon representatives about the fact that after Verizon lays cable under residents' driveways, Verizon is not legally compelled to ensure every driveway is returned to pristine condition. Verizon only has to patch the path across the driveway. Some driveways will have uneven surface coloring.

I'm not going to name names, but suffice it to say some of our fellow residents are a LOT more concerned about the uniformity of their driveway surface than about the speed of their home Internet access. A good deal of discussion revolved around whether Verizon should be required to build a brand-new driveway at every home where it runs fiber optic cable. In the understatement of the evening, the Verizon representative suggested the cost would be "prohibitive."

These fellow citizens of mine seem a bit oblivious to the magnitude of the task of running new cable to every house in every neighborhood. To paraphrase the old cliché: If you want to make a high-speed network, you're going to have to break a few driveways. Running all that cable is a gargantuan job. As the Verizon rep I spoke with said: "It's the project of a lifetime."

We also heard from a band of homeowners who have joined forces to protest the fact that the fiber optic cable has been run to their houses, but has not been activated. The Verizon representative explained patiently that the process of installation is not to create a linear connection from Verizon to each home successively, but rather to lay sections of cable wherever they have been granted access by a plethora of government and other agencies, and then to tie it all together at the end. One of the supervisors seemed quite dissatisfied with this explanation, which set me to thinking about exactly which character from Atlas Shrugged she reminded me of.

Another cliche comes to mind, the one about looking a gift horse in the mouth.

For my part, I will GLADLY allow Verizon to discolor my driveway in return for faster Internet. I'll either reseal the driveway myself or just park my car over the blemish when we're having fancy visitors.

Actually, I'll go a step further: I will be out there with my shovel to help dig the trench through my front yard to get that fiber optic cable into the house. In the time it takes the imao.us home page to load on my current DSL connection, I could dig three feet of trench or reseal half the driveway. And I'll send Verizon a bouquet of flowers for the privilege of doing so.