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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs one of the founding members of LakelandFiberNOW<\/a>, I believe that an\nimportant goal of the group is to increase competition throughout Lakeland for\nits internet service. Lakeland has fewer options than many other cities in the\nI-4 corridor area. As a result, many Lakelanders face higher prices, lower speeds,\nand inadequate support from their ISP. LakelandFiberNOW feels that there may be\na way to foster competition by building a municipally-owned high-speed fiber\nnetwork. Having access to another provider means more choices, bringing better\npricing and faster speeds to all of its residents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n LakelandFiberNOW acknowledges the high cost associated with\ninvesting in the infrastructure required to provide this internet. Still, we\nfeel that if we follow the roadmap set forth by other communities like\nChattanooga, TN- who have greatly benefited from their own network- we can\ninvest in infrastructure that will empower our community for generations to\ncome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In many cases, Lakeland already has its foot in the door\nwhen it comes to delivering the internet. It already has 330+ miles of dark\nfiber already installed throughout the Lakeland Electric service area and a\nutility that has provided critical Electric services for over 100 years. Also,\nLakeland already delivers high-speed wireless internet to the downtown area, and\nthere are already over twenty groups using the existing fiber infrastructure to\nbring them high-speed internet as well. The next logical step is to offer that\nsame service to all Lakelanders so that they too, can benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LakelandFiberNOW is an awareness-focused non-profit whom is\nadvocating for the investment of a municipal fiber network throughout the\nLakeland area- You can find us at:<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/lakelandfibernow.com<\/a>\n & https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LakelandFiberNOW\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n & We have a Tent @ First Friday Downtown across from\nRevival<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by Hans Arndt As one of the founding members of LakelandFiberNOW, I believe that an important goal of the group is to increase competition throughout Lakeland for its internet… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/girlholdingfibersmile.png?fit=1024%2C684&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Hans-Arndt.jpg?resize=186%2C272&ssl=1\")
Hans Arndt <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n