RANA groups: RANA, Main Street Lexington, Businesses, Schools Civilians

RANA:

Obviously for their own project, RANA believes that an updated fiber optic Internet connection will help boost tourism and entrepreneurship in Lexington. If new businesses see that the city is committed to good internet, there should be more interest in opening a business in Lexington. They bring in technology guys to keep the peace, and explain the whole science behind it. However, the tech guys are very closed minded, and only speak in technology terms, which means a lot is missed in translation, and other groups get angry, because of possibly perceived wrongdoings.

Main Street Lexington:

Main Street Lexington (MSL) is the volunteer driven group that looks to help business and tourism in Lexington grow. They have tried to mediate groups before in a meeting, but to little success. They want to see RANA be successful because they think that the new connection will be beneficial to tourism and business in Lexington. They are caught in a weird place tough, because they also want to represent the businesses, some of whom dislike the idea of RANA. This is why they hosted the original meeting on RANA. It did not go well, and now my goal is to make sure the second time around goes better

Businesses:

Businesses are the main detractors to the ideas of RANA and MSL. While some of them agree that the internet should be fixed, and gladly welcome a fiber optic network that speeds up their connection, many businesses feel like they are being forced to use the network, when they really don’t want to. Compounding this is the fact that only some business owners actually live in Lexington, and some just rent out spaces, and feel that if they do not use the space they should not be required to pay for more internet. They feel like it is tough enough in Lexington to find someone to rent out the building, let alone the fact that now they may have to jack up the price of rent. The main issue is that the businesses feel disrespected because they do not think their side of the story is being listened too, and at the same time, few of them can fully understand what the tech people are saying.

Schools:

A minor player in this, it really comes down to a single news article about WNL. WNL internet sucks, and they would love a slice of the pie when it comes to fiber optic connectivity. The main issue seems to be that a lot of teachers and/or officials at the school seem to have conflicting loyalty, as they sit in on meetings, for one group, but have strong feelings the other way too. This can be seen on both campuses, but really doesn’t affect RANA as a whole.

Civilians:

Mostly just meant for the people in the city limits, as RANA does not affect the county. Civilians and businesses seem to be on the same page here because they feel like their internet works just fine, and they don’t need an upgrade. I don’t know about their choices in internet, but it’s obvious that a lot of them feel forced to change. I think that a lot of these issues form all groups could be changed if we were to just understand the failure to communicate and try to create a common language that everyone could understand.