Does Broadband availability = high tech jobs

[tailwagger]

Officials: Broadband needed for economic growth | economic, officials, passing - News - The News Herald

Companies are passing on locating in the Florida Panhandle because of the lack of adequate, high-speed Internet and wireless access, economic development officials said.
?If you don?t have jobs that create a livable wage because you don?t have a telecommunication infrastructure, the future is not very bright,? said Al Wenstrand, Florida?s Great Northwest president.
About a dozen companies a year look at locating along the Panhandle and decide against it, Wenstrand said, and those companies have said the area?s telecommunication infrastructure isn?t strong enough. Losing even a small company is a blow to the region, he added.
And while urban areas have a good base for broadband technology, rural areas are struggling to keep up, said Richard Marcum, Opportunity Florida executive director. Currently, broadband access resembles a patchwork quilt, with densely populated areas having access while rural areas go without. That kind of network will not support a business? case for a loan, Marcum said.
The issue is a regional one, Marcum said. Bay County has better access than most, but the area still needs surrounding counties to be able to attract more companies, he said.
In response, Opportunity Florida has applied for a $34 million grant to create a broadband network for eight counties in the Panhandle, including Gulf and Jackson counties. Marcum said the grant is needed to bring economic growth to the region.
The new Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport near West Bay and the redevelopment of the deep-water port in Port St. Joe created an opportunity to spur commercial development, but without broadband access, that potential will not be realized, Marcum said.
When finished, the broadband network project could create about 10,000 jobs over five years.
?By way of reference, in 2008 the region lost a project representing 2,900 jobs with an average salary of over $40,000, nearly twice the existing per-capita income, due to lack of broadband access,? Marcum wrote in the grant application.
Marcum expects to hear soon whether the grant will be awarded.
Broadband access is most needed in telecommunications, Wenstrand said. Companies want redundancy lines so if one cable is cut, they still have access. They want wireless and broadband access, and they want it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, he said.
Without access, the majority of the Florida Panhandle is likely to miss out on high-skilled, high-paying jobs, the officials said. Income in rural counties surrounding Bay County is 34 percent less than the state average, Marcum said.
?The company won?t come without the infrastructure,? Wenstrand said. ?Businesses are just data-driven at this time.?
Marcum said high-speed Internet is just as important as electricity and roads, but service providers cannot make a profit from providing broadband to rural areas. The population is too sparse to support building costs, Marcum said.
Companies won?t locate where Internet access is still in dial-up and satellite mode, Marcum said.
?If you don?t have it, they will not come,? Marcum said. ?We, in economic development, do not believe high-speed Internet is a luxury; it is a necessity.?

 

[Here4Good]

I don't know if this is still the case, but I know that as of last year MediaCon still had a single point of failure in South Georgia for this entire area. Perhaps they have fixed that, since we have not had a broadband outage in a few months.

The alternatives here for industrial-strength connectivity are not good. We have spotty broadband, cell coverage and really, Mayberry-quality phone services - and no competition in these services.

All of us who work remotely at home (and in Sowal, we are legion) suffer the consequences of this. It's a topic of conversation, like the weather - what was out, how long it was out, etc.

 

[scooterbug44]

In a global economy, you are dead in the water if you can't transfer data and communicate.

Good schools, proximity to air travel, a skilled workforce, and good infrastructure are all key to attracting business and jobs to our area.