Lowell Deeds

We came very close to ordering up wireless internet service for the registry. This wouldn’t have anything to do with our network, so it’s not like we’d be allowing people with “strange” laptops to tie into the registry’s network and essentially have their own public access computer. Instead, this would allow folks with wireless-equipped laptops to log onto our website and perform research over the Internet. For users, one of the big benefits of this would be the ability to obtain electronic images of documents. You can do that easily from our website, but not from our -in-the-registry system. There, you must print the document if you want a copy of it. As I envision it, title examiners would be able to prepare an electronic title report right at the registry, complete with document images and then email the full report to the customer. The wireless capability would also give us some redundancy in the event our computer system went down like it did one day last week. (The Internet server is separate from our network server). Sounds good so far, doesn’t it? The hesitation is that once we allow Internet access to the public, we will be allowing full Internet access, not just access to registry and other land related sites. There’s no telling what people might be accessing and, while I understand that’s the nature of the Internet, government is a particularly conservative institution when it comes to things like that. I have to give it a lot more thought. In the meantime, if you have any opinions on this topic, please share them with us.