Lake Oswego May be Pulling Plug on Broadband

Last month it seemed that Lake Oswego was ready to go boldly into the future of broadband,

By a 6-1 vote, the Lake Oswego's City Council moved to work with a local company to bring super fast Internet connections to its residents.

The company, Symmetrical Networks, said it wold cost about $32 million to build the network.

The way the deal was negotiated, Lake Oswego would have little to no cost at the beginning but by guaranteeing minimum numbers of subscribers, they could end up owing Symmetrical millions of dollars if things did not work out.

It looks like the city is now having second thoughts.

"The mayor decided to 'pull-the-plug on municipal broadband fiber," Councilman Jon Gustafson wrote on his Facebook page.

"He made the nessesary calls to secure the votes needed to stop the project and had those discussions behind closed doors and without the knowledge of the entire council"

Gustafson wrote that 79 percent of Lake Oswego residents supported the initiative and he is disappointed at the turn of events.

"For now, our access to the information superhighway remains at the mercy of giant out of state corporations," he wrote. "Sigh."

The City Council will have a study session to examine the issue on March 15.

The developments were first reported by The Oregonian.