9.d) Wyldewood Acres Scandia_Broadband_LetterOfSupportFrom: Wyldewood Acres HOA (Association President)
To: City of Scandia
Date:10/15/2014
Regarding: Letter of Support for Broadband Expansion/Grant
The residents of Wyldewood Acres are very supportive of the City of Scandia efforts to expand
Broadband access to the community. As a 27 home development with a high concentration of
professionals, children and retired couples the need for broadband access is high. Many residents have
moved from "more connected" metro areas such as Hugo, Forest Lake and White Bear Lake where
Broadband access is standard. While internet speed limitations were more readily accepted in 2004-06
when the development was established and most residents moved in; 10 years later the same (limited)
level of service is available and is not acceptable in a highly connected work and home life.
The service currently available is inadequate for a number of personal, educational, and business
purposes. Some examples include:
All residents complain of frequent modem resets and dropped service through current DSL.
Frontier has been unable to resolve these issues through years of attempts to fix, and are
frustrating & confusing for most (non-technical) residents.
A full-time telecommuter had to provision multiple DSL lines to separate work from home lines
to obtain a workable connection speed.
A few residents have resorted to 4G hotspots, but these are not suitable for corporate/business
connections due to cost & reliability.
There are over 30 children in the 27 home neighborhood, many of whom attend Scandia
elementary just % mile from the development, that are connected through school programs and
require reliable, high speed service for educational needs.
Download speeds are limited and generally less than 3-4 Mb/s; upload speeds are nearly
unusable at 0.5 Mb/s.
As a 80% telecommuter of two years I've reduced my fuel consumption drastically by avoiding a 100 -
mile daily commute, have frequented local businesses for dining vs. corporate cafeterias; but am
concerned as the industry evolves to video communication and other demanding business needs myself
and other neighbors won't be able to sustain a telecommute arrangement.
Over the past few years the HOA has tried independent efforts to obtain broadband service by having
multiple residents outreach to Midcontinent for "service area checks" in the hopes of getting on the
radar for service.
The neighborhood is excited to be in consideration for broadband and supports the City of Scandia in
this effort!
Sincerely,
Wyldewood Acres HOA (President, Eric Tryon)