Cities Using Various Business Models for Broadband Networks.

“Government Technology (1/12, Nichols) reported that "for the past few years, as cities across the country jumped on the broadband wagon, many government IT leaders kept getting stuck on the first and most important one" of how to pay for it. Yet, "some cities have succeeded in delivering broadband service to the public." First responders in New York, for example, "can access files through the $500 million high-speed New York City Wireless Network (NYCWiN), built and operated for the next five years by Northrop Grumman Corp. Other areas such as Bristol, Va. and Corpus Christi, Texas, have also developed thriving models of a public network." In addition, Philadelphia and Minneapolis have shown "two very different ways in which a city can make that big connection." Philadelphia opted for a publicly funded network, while Minneapolis "chose to become the anchor tenant for US Internet" and now has "more than 16,000 private subscribers."”


This headline item above is important, because it addresses a real need to add to the quality of life for the average citizen, and is an important basis for the development of access to “High-Tech” tools for one and all. The glue that binds our modern society is wide access to broadband or high speed internet access and information. With such access, people become much more connected, productive, and interested in improving their own lot. It also gives them access to productive job searches, academic work to improve their educations, technology driven jobs, and a connected sense to their fellow citizens and community.

While it is a hard economic time there is no doubt, with so much talk about building jobs with improvements by long range plans for infrastructure, the development of broadband access could be more important that building roads, bridges, or trains. With such broadband access, the development of jobs that “telecommute” and are driven by our information based society, could explode. So with such in mind, is it time to work harder and more focused for grants and funds to provide for such in our two core city centers, and provide public “Wide-Area Broadband” access for all? This is an item whose time has come and just may be the wheels that drives real economic resurrection… COMMENTS?

Roger A. Leonard, MPA
Suffolk…