By Ellen Anderson, Director of Research.
A large part of what we do at
Market Street is present research to tell stories about communities and translate those stories into real-world economic development strategies that leverage assets and opportunities and address factors that challenge the community’s short and long-term competitiveness. To do this, we examine an exhaustive inventory of community dynamics including demographic trends, economic structure, business climate, entrepreneurship and innovation assets, workforce competitiveness, quality of life, and infrastructure.
Until recently, there was not a reliable national source that could quickly and accurately compare broadband speed between communities. Often times, this component of competitiveness is left out of the story or supported by anecdotal stakeholder input. The Communications Workers of America (CWA, a union representing 700,000 workers in communications, media, airlines, manufacturing, and public service), through their policy project, Speed Matters, has released county and state level data on broadband speed.
Broadband service saw a big push ten years ago, but it is something that many people now take for granted. When we turn on our laptops or iPhones, no matter where we are, we expect them to work. But, the fact of the matter is Broadband service in many areas of the country is woefully slow. The following map shows average download speeds by Georgia counties in terms of kilobits/second or megabits/second (note: 1,000kb = 1mb). Georgia
ranks 13th nationwide for fastest average download speed (6490 kbps compared to 5074 kbps for the United States), but you can see that outside of metro Atlanta most counties’ broadband service is mediocre.
According to the
2009 Speed Matters report, the United States is not optimally competitive in broadband service, costs, or usage. “The United States has fallen to 15th behind other industrialized nations in the percent of the population subscribing to broadband. Countries like Canada, Britain, France, Germany, and Sweden have higher broadband subscription rates than we do. In addition, other countries, like Japan, South Korea, and Sweden, have much faster Internet connections than we do. People in Japan can upload a high-definition video in 12 minutes, compared to a grueling 2.5 hours at the U.S. average upload speed. Yet, people in Japan pay about the same as we do in the U.S. for their Internet connection.”
Because of these challenges with the national infrastructure, public private partnerships between businesses, academic institutions, and governments have helped to develop high speed networks like the National Lambda Rail and Internet2 to allow for the rapid exchange of information between members. The National Lambda Rail (NLR) sites the following as some examples of collaboration which its enhanced infrastructure allows:
• “NLR enabled the supercomputer Ranger, located at the Texas Advanced Computing Center in Austin, to retrieve and analyze comprehensive U.S. and global data in order to study mutations of the H1N1 virus that could lead to drug resistance.”
• “Schools in Barrow County, Georgia are using NLR to bring top scientists in to the classroom via real-time, high-definition video.”
• “The Iowa Health System peers with NLR at the Starlight facility on Northwestern University's Chicago campus so that its hospitals and clinics in over 70 communities in Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska can securely and reliably connect with data and specialists elsewhere in the U.S. and in other countries.”
Now there are efforts to build statewide consortiums (such as in Florida and California) and to link consortiums together with international networks in Mexico (CUDI) and Canada (CANARIE). As more information is exchanged digitally such connections are increasingly important to economic competitiveness.