To the editor:

The “Musk’s mission to Mars may hit closer to home” article (Feb. 4) really hit close to home for rural Douglas County residents. As a former city dweller with two DSL options in the backyard and two fiber optic provider boxes in the front yard, I had no idea of the internet desert in rural eastern Douglas County when I moved to the Vinland Valley area in 2018. The options for rural residents are either satellite with cloud reception issues or the choice of three radio wave internet service providers with various interruption issues.

The rural service doesn’t come close to what city dwellers purchase. I have the high end package from one leading Kansas-based provider with 25 Mpbs download. Service outages are nearly a daily occurrence. The worst outage took place in May 2019: no Internet and no DirecTV. We were in the dark about the location of the tornado. With increased remote learning, working from home and public safety, there must be better a better option: underground fiber optic.

Douglas County is one of the best places to live in Kansas. BroadbandNow has other Kansas counties ranked higher for internet coverage. “Connect the County” should be the theme for a major works project where every Douglas County household has access to fiber optic internet. This would be funded through sweeping sales tax collections from existing internet service providers and entertainment providers that are delivered through the internet (Netflix, YouTube, etc.) into a fund to finance construction.

Let’s connect every home so Douglas County moves to the top of the list for internet service.

Peter Grassl,

Eudora