WORCESTER COUNTY - During the commission meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 6, Maryland Broadband Cooperative presented the Transatlantic Fastnet project to commissioners and the public.
The project is in partnership with Amazon Web Services, and would potentially bring a transatlantic cable landing to the Ocean City Municipal Airport. This presentation comes after the Worcester County Planning Commission tabled the zoning text amendment last Thursday.
Drew Van Dopp is the CEO and President of Maryland Broadband. He says the project is a quality route for high speed data to get from Europe to the business parks of Northern Virginia.
“It is not a 25,000 square foot facility with five megawatts of power, he says. It is a 1,200 square foot facility with 350 kilowatts of power. It is not a data center, it is not a cable landing station, and it cannot be turned into either of those things.”
Van Dopp adds that this is an opportunity to more than double the amount of available fiber capacity on the shore, and taxpayers aren't being asked to pay for it.
Worcester County Commissioner Eric Fiori asked Van Dopp several questions following the presentation. Although he asked these questions, he says more information is still needed from Maryland Broadband
“They're asking the county commissioners to change zoning to approve a $40 million private investment from AWS, in agreement with Maryland Broadband, and for them to build out basically the entire fiber network through the state of Maryland, starting in Worcester County for basically on the dime of a private entity,” he says. “That's wonderful on paper and that sounds great, but you're talking about a $40 million investment with basically zero contractual obligations right now.”
He says he is pushing to have the public decide on this, no matter what commissioners want to decide on their own.
“I feel like the public is not being heard,” he says. “We had eight community members today speak about it at a day meeting when everybody else is working. I had 80 of our residents last night at a public forum.”
Commissioner Fiori is asking Maryland Broadband and AWS to hold a public meeting in 60 days with the County's Planning Commission. He says he hopes the next meeting has plenty of notice for the public so they have the opportunity to ask questions and get the answers they need.
