Miserable night
The newest fireworks this year sounded like a grenade or mortar shell going off.
New Year’s Eve was horrible! So loud and powerful, it made my night miserable. It was nothing like last year — 100 times as loud and obnoxious!
What has changed that allow these horrible fireworks now?
Ron Taylor
Hawaiian Beaches
Cable solution?
I have a solution that may help resolve Hawaii’s aging interisland submarine fiber-optic cables issue.
There was legislation considered by state Legislature pertaining to the issuance of special purpose revenue bonds for ClearCom Inc (HB2267, 2012), and for a proposed Kona Jet Center at Ellison Onizuka International Airport (HB203, 2019).
The state could float these bonds using their sterling credit at a low interest rate. This would be used to pay for part, or all, of the construction of a new submarine fiber-optic cable that would connect the neighbor islands with Oahu.
The owner(s) of this fiber-optic cable, which would be Hawaiian Telcom (and other possible partners, such as CenturyLink), would be responsible for paying off the low-interest revenue bonds, not the taxpayers of this state. The state’s involvement would be limited to financially expediting this critical public infrastructure project that Hawaiian Telcom doesn’t seem to want to tackle alone.
There has been at least two major outages involving at least one of the three submarine fiber-optic cables over the last 10 years. These outages, which occurred in 2010 and 2019, affected Maui, the Big Island and Kauai.
In both of the cases, it was fortunate that Paniolo Cable Co.’s cable was available for emergency restoration, but I strongly believe it would be unwise to depend solely on this cable in the future. Both Hawaiian Telcom’s existing infrastructure (HICS and HIFN) has, or will, reached the end of their lives.
The residents of the neighbor islands depend on reliable internet access. As the two main cables enter obsolescence, it raises the possibility of more damaging outages in the future.
Aaron Stene
Kailua-Kona