Grass Valley, CA — The Del Oro theater in Grass Valley, CA and the popular movie streaming service NetFlix announced this week that the theater’s iconic tower on Mill Street will provide high-speed Internet to the downtown area. The service, which has been in the planning phases for almost five years and had numerous setbacks, will provide Internet speeds similar to that of Satellite broadband.
“We are thrilled to be partnering with the famous Del Oro,” said Netflix company spokeswoman Bethany Millbright. “NetFlix is already known for its extensive LGBTEGF&D programing, not to mention endless hours of cartoons which keeps your kids ‘tablet-occupied’ while you are off doing more important things. Now we can offer blazing-fast Satellite Internet and Netflix access in downtown Grass Valley. You’re welcome Grass Valley.”
According to those close to the project, the tower will have a WiFi Router installed at the top, followed by a very long Ethernet cable which will connect the device to the Satellite receiver. As part of the agreement between the theater and the media giant, the Internet Access Point, or “AP” will be called “GVLovesNetFlix.” Due to the height of the tower, the range of the free service will extend from the Highway 20 overpass at the end of Mill Street to Lyman Gilmore School.
“I’ve been waiting over 4 years for fiber Internet,” said Rhode Island Street resident Joseph Cornys. I even put down a huge deposit yet I haven’t even had as much as a phone call from the people doing it. I’m beginning to think they took my money and ran with it. I hope they at least had a nice vacation.”
However, not everyone was happy about the Del Oro Tower broadcasting free Internet.
“There has been a lot of debate about EMFs (electromagnetic fields) on Facebook recently,” said amateur researcher Skyy Wolford from his North San Juan home. “So I decided to do some research to get to the bottom of it. You know, real science stuff. And what I found is that these EMFs can hurt your brain and body tissues with radiation. It can keep you up at night. The radiation is almost as bad as walking around in the Sun. Scary. I’m not going downtown if they do this.”
This isn’t the first time the community has experimented with the tower. In late 1941, the tower was used as a spotlight tower for Japanese bombers. (Note: Japanese bombers never flew over Grass Valley.) In 1959, the tower was briefly and awkwardly renamed Del Shannon after the pop singer of the same name performed there. In the 1980s, to encourage foot traffic downtown the theater started hosting tours of the tower, allowing visitors to climb its innards to the top, which have all a spectacular view of downtown.
There are other facts according to theater staff.
“A lot of people don’t know that the tower is a lot like an iceberg,” said a theater worker in a Beacon telephone interview. “What I mean is you only see 10% of it. The other 90% is underground. You know, like an iceberg in the ocean. Apparently it was a WPA (Work Projects Administration) thing to keep workers busy. And it’s not like we have all that empty mine space underneath the city. There’s a hatch behind the building were you can go down and explore it, but some say its haunted down there.”
According to project coordinators, the free WiFi Service will start sometime next year if everything goes according to plan.
