Sponsored: Expanding Economic Opportunities Through High-Speed Internet

by | Oct 6, 2015 | Ads | 3 comments

State Senator Erica Smith-Ingram

State Senator Erica Smith-Ingram

There’s a growing economic divide in North Carolina between metro and rural regions of the state. One of the fastest growing divisions is access to high-speed internet.

Headlines blare of Google Fiber and AT&T Giga-Bit service coming to Raleigh and Charlotte. Meanwhile, in rural regions of the state, too many businesses, school systems, local governments and consumers are still using dial-up service to access the world-wide web.

Today, the internet as an infrastructure is just as important as a four-lane highway and adequate water & sewer services. When businesses look to locate new facilities or expand operations, one of their top requests is access to the information highway through high-speed internet services.

The reality is the telecom industry is moving to install fiber-optic cable with ultra-high speed internet in our urban centers, while rural regions of the state are trying to figure out how to get better internet service altogether.

When local governments take action, like the City of Wilson with their Greenlight Project, the telecoms immediately pounce to shut out competition. The Wilson Greenlight Project has been litigated, legislated and ended up before the Federal Communications Commission. The bottom line from the Wilson project was that fiber optic cable provided high-speed internet to their primary businesses protecting needed jobs in the banking and pharmaceutical industries located there.

If there is opposition to having local governments go it alone, we have to find a better way to provide high-speed internet services for rural regions of the state.

First, there has to be a working partnership between county and local governments with the telecom service providers. The federal and state governments also should play a role in helping fund the capital investments for fiber optic cable and broadband services.

At the federal level, rules written in the 1990’s that enable incumbent carriers to use their dominance to inhibit competition should be updated. The Federal Communication’s Commission (FCC) has collected data on the so-called “special access” market to see where competition exists for access to networks. Where there is a lack of choice for access providers, the FCC needs to enact rules to promote competition for broadband providers.

At the state and local levels, our municipal and county officials need to work with the telecom service providers to develop realistic plans for improved high-speed internet service. We need to view high-speed internet service just like we see transportation and water-sewer when we’re talking about infrastructure investments.

A public/private partnership will incentivize the telecom industry to make the capital investments to improve high-speed internet service. Consumers, business, industry, and government will all benefit by extending high-speed internet service.

Every single community, county, city, town and crossroads in North Carolina should have access to high-speed internet. The digital world is going to drive our state’s economy in the future. We cannot afford to leave huge chunks of the state without access. It’s an investment in our state’s economic future and it’s time to get to work making it happen.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT SENATOR SMITH-INGRAM AT  919-715-3040 OR EMAIL AT Erica.Smith-Ingram@ncleg.net

PAID FOR BY THE MAIN STREET DEMOCRATS PAC

www.mainstdems.org

3 Comments

  1. Charles Hogan

    North Carolina has sued the Federal Communications Commission so it can continue enforcing a state law that prevents municipal broadband networks from expanding. The FCC preempted such laws in both North Carolina and Tennessee. Tennessee filed a lawsuit to save its municipal broadband restrictions in March

    North Carolina has now done the same in a petition filed by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. “Despite recognition that the State of North Carolina creates and retains control over municipal governments, the FCC unlawfully inserted itself between the State and the State’s political subdivisions,” North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper wrote to the court. Attorney General Cooper claimed the FCC’s action violates the US Constitution; exceeds the commission’s authority; “is arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act; and is otherwise contrary to law.”

    Tom Tillis filed a brief with the FCC during the hearing on Wilson coming out against community broadband that is a matter of record.

    In the case of “High Speed Internet” both sides of the aisle are guilty of favoring a protectionism stance in offering “Turf protection” to their ISP donors.That stance is totally opposite to their cherished “Free Market ” values.

    Your assessment that High Speed Internet is the super Highway of the future is correct,
    However, it appears that North Carolina has decided that the ‘dirt roads’ owned by the “Good old Boys ” are just fine and there is no need to put in expensive” super highway of the Internet” in place even if the locals are so desperate to get good broadband that they are willing to pay for it themselves.

    Studies have shown that community Broadband has been a boon to the IT industry and general business community where ever it occurs .

    Just think of a Amazon style distribution center opening up in your rural farm community supplying hundreds of “jobs”, were distance from the market place is not a issue and you will get the idea. For gods sake it is already happening just look at the Google data center in Lenoir, Caldwell County, North Carolina of all place and it is due to double in size in the next year bringing a corresponding local economic boon along with that growth.

    The meaning of that old business saying “location,location,location” has changed because now that “prime business location” tends to mean anywhere you can find a drop cord and “High Speed Internet.

  2. Elizabeth Grovenstein

    I have had a very similar experience as John Eyles with lack of actual high-speed internet service in my community. AT&T only put in DSL a few years ago when I contacted enc and they used federal stimulus money to “convince” AT&T to install it. Since then, I have been “upgraded” to the incredibly non-competitive rate of 3mbps with U-Verse, which is, of course, no longer considered high-speed.

    Charter provides service along the road which my road intersects at both ends. I am literally 1.2 miles from either end and access to actual high-speed internet. Same story – exorbitant fees to install cable. We have also tried a neighborhood campaign to generate enough people to make installation “affordable” for the massively profitable Charter. And I contacted my county commissioners. Nothing has worked so far.

    I moved here from very, very rural Pennsylvania where actual high-speed internet was provided by a local, which became regional, service provider at an extraordinarily low monthly rate. The key word in the previous sentence is “service”. The provider was concerned about customers and provided not only high-speed internet but also quick response times whenever repairs were needed.

    A friend in a state adjacent to NC has multiple possibilities for high-speed service because the state requires large telecoms to provide comparable service to every citizen in their “service” area who wants it and can pay for it. His situation is similar to mine in that he lives on the edge of a larger city in an out-of-the-way location.

    Something needs to be done so that all citizens have access to technology which has become necessary to conduct basic life tasks. I am delighted to see that at least some people in “our” mostly non-responsive state government are looking into ways to provide that technology.

    Thank you.

  3. John Eyles

    I am glad to see a member of our legislature addressing this issue. Fortunately I do not have to rely on dial-up, but there is also a divide between those who get quality high-speed internet service and those of us whose only access is to sub-par DSL service. Our neighborhood is serviced by ATT, and although we theoretically get 3Mbps download speeds, we usually see only about half that, and worse, we get frequent glitches and interruptions of service. ATT is of little help, because they know we have no real alternatives. Time-Warner Cable services the paved road nearby, but they will only provide service to us if we pay them exorbitant rates for running cable down our road.

    So it is very aggravating to read breathless accounts of gigabit fiber service coming to some areas. Still, we should count our blessings: I am shocked to learn that there are areas where dial-up is the only option. I suppose the whole situation is part of the increasing polarization of our society into the haves and the haves-not.

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