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Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter
Here are this week’s letters to the editor of the Herald Times Reporter. See our letters policy below for details about how to share your views.
Inequality of internet access and affordability
The FCC and PSC standard 100/20 Mbps /100 ms is a 10-year-old target, and now will condemn many of our urban and rural citizens to a second-class caste when fully implemented by the year 2030.
50/10 or 25/4 Mbps is being offered to low-income families and perpetuates the systemic discrimination inherent in our society. If you want to create and expand a permanent underclass, you will need to discriminate against them for education, employment, housing and health care, as we have done in this country for hundreds of years. Yet, our expectations are for them to overcome this historic discrimination and lack of white privilege in the Internet Age by pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps with 20-year-old technology
Network congestion in existing monopoly incumbent internet network connections is a major problem for many, be they HFC or fiber networks. Charter/Spectrum provides well below advertised speeds and offers a 1,000/500 asymmetrical service because they don’t want to buy the bandwidth and pay the peering costs for 1,000 Mbps symmetrical backhaul. It cuts into their 25%-50% profit margins.
By 2030, however, most new urban and suburban internet connections will be offered in the 2,000 Mbps to 10,000 Mbps range. Both urban and rural low-economic populations will continue to be discriminated against for the foreseeable future.
Regulation and competition are the answers, but these require the courage of imagination, the work of mental inspiration and efforts of physical perspiration.
Michael F. Pitsch
Francis Creek
America heading in the wrong direction
There was a time in America when truth, honor, character, loyalty and absolute adherence to the foundation of America were emblematic of being a citizen. They were also qualifiers for the office of president. No longer.
We are now faced with accusations of fake news and penalizing of news reporters for telling the truth. Highly respected colleges are penalized for teaching the truth the president doesn’t agree with.
Young girls placed up for sale to those with means to pay big dollars are now being called a “Democratic hoax” and the Republican Party is doing all it can to shield those whose moral compass allows them to leave their wives at home for a little sport in decadent surroundings.
Career law enforcement officers working for the FBI to investigate crime are now fired because they investigated the president. The remaining officers are left fearful of losing their jobs if they even think of uncovering crimes the president is committing.
The president, who called those who lost their lives fighting for our country “losers and suckers,” is now using military resources to occupy American cities while they are masked to avoid being identified. Just think of other countries you have visited or seen pictures of using their military in this fashion. It is not a tourism draw. And the ruling party is going along with this.
I can think of another country in 1936 that followed this same trajectory — and that didn’t turn out well.
Donald Vogt
Manitowoc
Join Manitowoc Walk to End Alzheimer’s Sept. 27
Sept. 27 is the Walk to End Alzheimer’s in Manitowoc. We walk from the YMCA toward a turnaround point close to the roundabout and back.
Money is raised to help locally with resources and for a cure.
This disease runs in my family, and I’ve experienced how hard it is … I know there are readers in similar situations. Please know you are not alone. Come to the walk and share the comfort of knowing we fight together.
I have walked for years, and there is room for you to find more support, to see understanding faces and to feel less isolated in navigating this disease.
More than 2,000 Manitowoc County residents are living with this disease. To find out more, go to https://act.alz.org/site/TR/Walk2025/WI-Wisconsin?fr_id=18998&pg=entry.
I hope for the very best turnout ever.
Kris Dykstra
Manitowoc
Our letters policy
Letters to the editor are published in the order in which they are received and letter-writers are limited to having one letter published per month. Letters can be emailed to htrnews@htrnews.com and Editor Brandon Reid at breid@gannett.com. Letters must meet specific guidelines, including being no more than 250 words and be from local authors or on topics of local interest. All submissions must include the name of the person who wrote the letter, their city of residence and a contact phone number. Letters are edited as needed for style, grammar, length, fairness, accuracy and libel.