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Comment by iamdave | Hacker News Reader

Why the county won't permit everyone to interconnect with them directly befuddles me, as all they're doing is adding a single point of failure by forcing all calls to go through Centurylink.

I've consulted with a few rural counties (I don't know a thing about the PNW, is Kitsap a rural or suburban county?) who got their circuits leased to them through a local MSP/IT Shop who had all the best intentions, but overlooked any sort of failover and you end up with an answering center taking calls over a single adtran going direct out to a CLEC.

Just wondering if this is less county refusing to do something, and more like the county implementing services sold to them that probably could have benefited from better planning and integration.

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Probably the latter. How many rural county boards have people who actually understand any of this stuff?

It seems more than likely that Centurylink Sales/Marketing convinced a few counties to use them and then sold itself to other counties as "the" provider for such services.

How many rural county boards have people who actually understand any of this stuff?

Not enough, I would wager. It's something I spend a lot of time thinking about, living in one of the largest cities in the country now, with parents who live comfortably in the rural south-but have complained about the internet a couple of times.

To their credit, they'll lose connectivity for hours and not even mind, since mom will just turn on the radio and listen to the local PBS station and tend to her garden while dad goes out to his woodshop.

Others in their community probably aren't as content without connectivity, for such long periods as they are.

If gov at that level can't afford to consult, decisions on that infrastructure should move up a level.

Yes, it does seem rather redundant to have each county responsible for rolling their own solution (even if that's just deciding how to outsource it)

In NW WA you might be surprised. There's a long history of utility self sufficiency with the San Juan islands, and the area and neighboring counties has a lot of dark fiber available for lease from smaller independent providers. Many municipalities and community organizations light up their own WAN links.

There was a always a tension when it comes to outsourcing and considering core competencies in the orgs I saw. Can imagine less appetite for creative solutions when critical things like 911 are involved.

A leader's job is find experts and delegate. Not knowing isn't an excuse, finding people that do know IS their job.

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