By Jim Baller
Economic development has been the “killer app” of community broadband, particularly fiber-to-the-home projects, during the last fifteen years. What’s more, economic development is likely to become an even more powerful driver of community broadband in the years ahead, as our knowledge of the relationship between high-capacity broadband connectivity and economic development continues to grow and mature, and as the lessons learned from the federal broadband stimulus program, Google fiber, Gig.U, and other gigabit initiatives work their way across the nation. This paper examines what we know about the relationship between broadband and economic development today, what we are likely to learn in the months and years ahead, and what this means for our communities and our nation.