PUD adds WiFi Hotspots

Access to the internet was important before the COVID-19 outbreak. Since schools and businesses were shuttered and Washington State was ordered to Stay At Home, access to internet has become essential. Schools and churches moved online; basic business and government services were suddenly online only. Even weddings, birthday parties, and grocery shopping moved online. But if you don’t have internet at home, or have extremely slow internet, as is true of many of our rural residents, how are you supposed to connnect?

Prior to the pandemic, many residents used free wifi from public facilities and cafes to access the internet. With most of those options removed by the shutdown, PUDs around Washington State have stepped in to fill the void by installing free wifi hotspots around their service territories.

Jefferson County PUD began by adding an outdoor hotspot to its customer service office, beaming symmetrical speed internet to the parking lot. Hotspots were added next at substations that had both fiber connections and accessible parking: first at the Chimacum Substation and next at the Hasting substation in Port Townsend. By the end of April, the PUD had ten hotspots up and running around the county (incl. Gardiner and on Marrowstone Island at their respective fire stations) with plans for at least 15 by the end of May.

Depending on the site, our PUD hotspots provide speeds of anywhere from 10 to 100mbps each way. Each way is important. One of the things so many of us are discovering during the shutdown is that slow upload speeds (under 5mbps) make online classrooms and Zoom meetings difficult to participate in. Most of our free PUD hotspots offer symmetrical speeds, so its as fast coming down it is fast going up, and no one will complain about your face blurring or lagging and your voice not coming through clearly.

The network is open and it’s accessible 24/7. Choose JeffPUD_Community from the list of wifi network options to connect. All locations have parking so users can connect from their cars safely, and at acceptable social distances.

Additionally, the PUD has added USB charging outlets to a few of our hotspot sites as well at the Jefferson County Library. You can find them listed and mapped along with the rest of our wifi hotspots (including notes on each) below: