Post today on The Hill.
Doesn’t mention the recent net neutrality assaults by ATT and Verizon with preferable rates for their content, and the legislative push at the state level by Koch bros and other interests to limit and block municipal broadband networks. Nor the recent retreat by the FCC on rules for business internet, and other important rule making areas.
But beggars can’t be choosers, and this at least offers some hopes for broadband infrastructure support that enables affordable access. We’ll see how that works out.
[gview file=”https://publicservicesalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/One-bipartisan-priority-Broadband-Internet-access-infrastructure-TheHill.pdf”]It turns out that high capacity Internet connections are indeed essential for wifi access, education technology or “edtech”, mobile payments and other “fintech”, cloud computing, data analytics and data storage, social media and website management, advertising placement, health IT and genomics, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), HD video, augmented reality (AR), autonomous vehicles, and robotics.
The industries of the near future and the jobs they create will demand access to smart, largely wired fiber optic infrastructure to function on a daily basis. Economic revitalization of small towns and rural areas in Virginia and across America will depend on the availability of digital infrastructure.