Collins Talks Internet in Royston

By MJ Kneiser, WLHR Radio, Lavonia

9th District U.S. Representative Doug Collins is touring the District this month visiting small business owners who are developing their own Internet provider services.

Last week, Collins was in Royston talking to the owners of Paladin Wireless.

For many customers in northeast Georgia, Windstream is the only Internet service available and Collins has said that his office fields more complaints about the poor Internet service Windstream provides than any other complaint.

Over the past year, Collins has demanded Windstream prove how it has spent the millions in federal dollars it received to upgrade its system.

Collins said his office continues monitor their progress.

“What we’ve done is kept up the pressure on Windstream” said Collins.” We have no problem with free Enterprise but when you take Federal dollars to grow your business, you have to be accountable for how those dollars are spent. The problem we’re seeing is a lot of the commitments they were making, even from their own brochures, is that they were more focused on the more profitable urban areas and all but saying, we’re going to let the rest of the areas take care of themselves.”

According to Collins, Northeast Georgia has good economic growth and for that growth to continue the region needs fast, reliable Internet service.

He said that is one reason why he is visiting new Internet provider start-ups like Paladin Wireless.

Paladin Wireless owner Steve Fortmann said he quickly saw a huge need for reliable fast Internet service when he moved his business to Royston from metro Atlanta.

“The Internet either was always going down or the train would go by and it would cut off. The up load was only .06 and with that you really can’t do anything. The dirty secret of the internet is, it doesn’t how fast a download is if you can’t ask for a file quick enough, you’re not going to be able get it.” said Fortmann.

That’s when he discovered other businesses and residences in the area were as frustrated as he was so he developed his own wireless Internet service.

Collins said he is now in talks with fellow lawmakers on Capitol Hill to see about helping to fund the smaller start-ups like Paladin Wireless.

“We’re having to explore some issues right now with that especially the way the funds are distributed. There’s some discussion on if the company has got it, is it available for others. There have been some other utility providers who would say we’ve got the infrastructure and we can help with this but they were also looking for those funds. Those are the kinds of questions we are having to ask now. said Collins.

Windstream and larger similar Internet providers already receive federal dollars to help with their growth.