Winter Park, Spectrum meet as city studies fiber-optic plan

WINTER PARK — As Winter Park pushes forward on plans to link its government buildings by a super-fast internet network, the task force studying the issue met with officials from cable-giant Spectrum on Tuesday.

Spectrum and its parent company, Charter Communications, sought the meeting after the panel spent the past several months debating how to create a network powered by fiber-optic cables.

City staff have requested $600,000 in the upcoming budget to speed up the infrastructure work to build such a network, which can support speeds of a gigabit per second or more, as high as 1,000 times faster than some providers. With the infrastructure in place, Winter Park one day could open the service to its residents.

At Tuesday’s meeting, a team of Spectrum officials spoke for about an hour, showcasing the company’s capabilities, services and infrastructure. They spoke of how Spectrum has 80,000 miles of fiber in the Central Florida market, including Orlando and Tampa.

Task force member and former Mayor David Johnston had a contentious exchange with Marva Johnson, the company’s vice president for state government affairs.

Johnston said he often hears complaints about Spectrum’s services from friends and residents of Winter Park.

“When I interact with people in Winter Park, the name Spectrum is not a very good name because there is no competition to speak of,” he said. “You’re a monopoly in this area.”

Johnson argued that the firm competes “robustly” with satellite providers and streaming services.

Johnston asked her if the company opposes the city’s plan to build a fiber network.

“We certainly can’t tell the city what to do,” she replied. “You’d have to make an assessment whether or not that’s the best use of Winter Park’s taxpayer dollars.’’