This short Register article highlights the urgency of dealing with the cable redundancy issue. Communities that do not have a plan to ensure at least two separate broaband cable paths (also referred to as backhaul or Internet feeds) in and out of a community are at risk of losing local businesses to places that do provide cable redundancy. High tech companies are leaving Iceland because the tiny country has only one primary fiber cable serving the entire island, and the cable has been damaged several times, leaving local companies high and dry, so to speak.
Also in the article is a note that residents of Greenland, with a population lower than many U.S. counties and rural regions, will be getting "super fast" ADSL2+, which runs at 24 megabits. According to my arithmetic, this is much faster than the "super fast" 7 megabit DSL that Verizon is touting here in the States.
Okay, here's my updated economic development slogan; feel free to use it in your region.
Our region--broadband almost as good as Greenland!