By Tara Bozick, Go Dan River
High-speed broadband infrastructure is key to future growth for Martinsville and the region, economic development leaders say. Over the past 10 years, Martinsville expanded its Martinsville Informational Network or “MINet” to more than 20 miles of fiber optic cable throughout Martinsville and Henry County.
Last year the U.S. broadband stimulus program finished awarding public, private and nonprofit organizations over $7 billion to build new broadband infrastructure, create public computing centers and implement broadband adoption programs. Concurrently, hundreds of millions have come from private and other public sources for broadband. Improving economic development is a driving force behind these investments.
Broadband is the most important selling point in the commercial real estate market behind price, parking and location, according to 90% of building owners and property managers in a survey conducted by Comcast Business Class.
By Matt McQuade, director of business development, Columbus 2020
Utility service has always been among the most heavily scrutinized factors in the site selection process.Locations are routinely eliminated due to issues pertaining to inadequate — or lack of — electric, gas, water, wastewater, or telecommunications infrastructure. Advances in technology have elevated the importance of the Internet in economic development and site selection. The availability, quality, and competitiveness of broadband service have become and will continue to be a key issue for many locations. Moreover, the United States has a “broadband problem” that is impacting the country’s competitiveness for new investment.
By Howard Baldwin
One of the toughest aspects of promoting new technology deployment and usage is finding meaningful facts to support its potential value to local business community stakeholders. While there are readily available estimates and forecasts, detailed analysis and actual payback examples are somewhat rare. That’s especially true with new technologies such as broadband that require the concerted efforts of multiple parties — which can include government agencies, service providers, equipment manufacturers, and end-users — in order to deliver quantifiable results.
Tim Bartik, Senior Economist, Upjohn Institute. Presented at “Transforming Communities Conference” of the National Employment Law Project
By James Lardner, Remapping Debate
It’s the economic-policy equivalent of the tree falling in the forest: Around the country, dozens of small and medium-sized communities have begun to build high-speed Internet systems, with some remarkable early results. Outside the affected communities themselves, however, hardly any national leaders are looking at these experiments, or at the idea that broadband, like highways and electricity, might be one of those forms of crucial economic infrastructure where public investment has the potential to spark a surge of private investment, creating jobs and boosting wages and opportunity.
By Christopher Mitchell
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance is pleased to release the Community Broadband Map and report, Publicly Owned Broadband Networks: Averting the Looming Broadband Monopoly. The map plots the 54 cities, big and small, that own citywide fiber networks and another 79 own citywide cable networks. Over 3 million people have access to telecommunications networks whose objective is to maximize value to the community in which they are located rather than to distant stockholders and corporate executives.
by CHRISTOPHER J. McGOWAN, Executive Vice President, The Siouxland Initiative
In this November’s mid-term elections, the single most important issue, by leaps and bounds, will be the economy, and more specifically job creation. National polls consistently reveal that no other issue is even close. One tool that has proved critical to job creation initiatives in all parts of this country is access to broadband.
By Mark Sullivan, PCWorld
When it comes to broadband, I’m a socialist. Why? Because broadband service in the United States is currently provided by a cableco/telco duopoly, and, as such, is slower and more expensive than in most of the developed world, studies show. Because I don’t believe the FCC can fix that lack of competition within the current regulatory framework, despite the ambitious goals set forth in its National Broadband Plan. Because a reasonably-priced alternative to cable or telco broadband might be just the thing to bring competition to the industry and spur U.S. broadband cost and quality to world-class levels. Because our connectedness increasingly dictates our our economic standing in the world: Broadband is as important to us as the interstate highway system–a public works project–was to Eisenhower-era America.
Letters from House Democrats and Senate Repbublicans Against the FCC — Sponsored by AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Astroturfers?
It’s open season on the FCC’s Broadband plans, from a new proposed bill by Rep. Stearns (FL), or former politicians tied to astroturf groups — Are the phone and cable companies pulling the strings?
To protect the Public Interest, shouldn’t these Senators and Congressmen recuse themselves from voting on issues that directly help their contributors — AT&T, Verizon and Comcast?
The Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) aims to reboot Europe’s economy and help Europe’s citizens and businesses to get the most out of digital technologies. It is the first of seven flagships initiatives under Europe 2020, the EU’s strategy to deliver smart sustainable and inclusive growth.
From the New America Foundation
The speed and price of a broadband connection are two important details about a broadband service that vary greatly between different countries. In comparing prices and speeds of broadband services around the globe, we find that the United States is among the most expensive and slowest of the countries surveyed in this report. Price is one of the main barriers to adoption, and prices for broadband in the U.S. are on the rise. Major steps need to be taken to bridge the speed and price disparities separating the U.S. from other industrialized countries.
Lately the word “fiber” has started to become ubiquitous in advertisements for broadband. It’s a synonym for the future, for speed and quality. Everybody tries to connect that synonym to their brand, regardless of their actual network design. In the trade press, acronyms like FttX (which stands for Fiber-to-the-X, where X is your favorite letter or word) are used as if all last mile network architectures with optical fiber are more or less equal.