Showing posts with label Georgia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Georgia. Show all posts

Friday, May 05, 2017

"Everyplace outside a metropolitan area was experiencing the same issues.”

Georgia Tackles the Digital Divide - Broadband Communities Magazine In summer 2016, Gooch and State Rep. Don Parsons formed a joint committee that included 10 members of both legislative houses and held a series of hearings all over Georgia. The committee heard testimony from local governments, state agencies, academic researchers, chambers of commerce, health care providers, incumbent telcos, trade associations and many other interested parties. In addition, it posted an online survey to ask residents about their broadband experiences. With very little promotion, the survey received 12,000 responses. Both the formal testimony and the survey responses confirmed that rural broadband was deficient all through rural Georgia – not just in the areas served by the provider in Gooch’s district. “Everyplace outside a metropolitan area was experiencing the same issues,” Gooch says. “There was no incentive for the providers to upgrade their infrastructures. It was an eye-opening conversation – all these people were from different parts of the state and had different phone companies.”

Georgia's experience shows deficient advanced telecommunications infrastructure is a widespread problem not limited to one part of the state. Nor is it limited to one state. Georgia's experience repeats all over the United States.

Deficient telecommunications infrastructure is not a local or state specific problem. It's a national issue requiring a national solution to bring robust fiber optic telecom infrastructure to every state in the union and to the doorstep of every American home, school and business. And just as long distance telephone service was interstate in the 20th century, so is Internet protocol-based service.

Monday, September 19, 2016

Relying on legacy incumbents, state government for telecom infrastructure modernization -- That dog don't hunt

Rural residents push for broadband | Local News | daltondailycitizen.com: After hearing from frustrated residents and community leaders, Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, who co-chairs the committee, sought to reassure service providers. "We need the Windstreams, the AT&Ts, the Comcasts," he said. "We're not running anybody off. We're trying to keep them here, keep their jobs here, but encourage more investment." One proposal is the elimination of a sales tax on telecommunications network equipment. Others have recommended boosting coverage by restoring state funding for local public-private projects and doing more to hold companies accountable when their service is not as advertised.

As they say in the south, that dog don't hunt. The "Windstreams, the AT&Ts, the Comcasts" aren't going to invest in telecom infrastructure to fill in service area gaps in any reasonable timeframe because the ROI is simply too far in the future to justify the investment to their shareholders.

Expecting state government to step up with the billions in needed funding isn't realistic either. A robust, well funded national telecommunications infrastructure initiative is needed.

Sunday, February 05, 2012

Georgia cities oppose proposed legislation curbing community networks

Representatives from several Georgia cities testified last week in opposition to state Senate Bill 313, legislation sponsored by investor-owned telecommunications providers that would bar local governments from using public funds to finance municipally owned Internet infrastructure. From the Associated Press story:

Leaders from cities including Elberton, Hogansville, Thomasville, Monroe and Toccoa lined up to tell senators that broadband is necessary infrastructure for the 21st century economic development they hope to attract — and that they are doing what they must to keep their communities competitive.

"We cannot wait for the private sector to ride to our rescue," said Tim Martin, executive director of the Toccoa-Stephens County Development Authority.

Martin is correct. Investor owned providers cannot earn a sufficiently rapid and adequate return on capital expenditures on last mile Internet infrastructure to satisfy their shareholders. That's why public funding is entirely appropriate just as it finances construction of roads and highways. This isn't rocket science -- just simple economics.