Technology Futures

Dan Rogers, President of the Kendall County, Texas Economic Development Corporation, just spoke at the Broadband Properties Summit here in Dallas-Fort Worth. Kendall County is a rural area between Austin and San Antonio, and is part of the Texas Hill Country--a beautiful area of mostly very small towns.

Kendall County is served by a rural telecom coop that is deploying fiber to the home, and Rogers indicated it has had a significant impact on economic development. He now views fiber as a relocation "eliminator," as he termed it, meaning that communities without fiber services are eliminated early in the relocation process.

Rogers also said something interesting about retention. He indicated he viewed fiber as part of Kendall County's retention strategy. Businesses already in the region are telling him that they are able to stay because the high capacity fiber services are enabling them to get bigger contracts with companies that expect them to have the same kind of broadband connectivity that is available in bigger metro areas.

Rogers also talked about "big broadband" and "little broadband." He viewed "little broadband" as areas with copper-based DSL and cable modem services, and noted that he saw Kendall County as having a significant advantage because they had "big broadband," meaning fiber-based broadband.

The notion of "big" and "little" broadband is a useful shorthand for cutting through the fog of just what kind of broadband is available in a community, and could be a useful marketing slogan: "Bring your business to our community, where we have BIG broadband."

When an audience member asked Rogers what he would tell elected officials who are reluctant to make an investment in community-wide broadband, he had sobering advice: "Tell them they won't be able to bring in the kind of businesses they want."

The sharp increases in gas and diesel fuel are raising the cost of commuting. Even if fuel prices recede (as they did after the '73 oil crunch), it seems likely that we will never see $2 gas again, and it may be that $3 gas becomes the new normal.

While the cost of fuel affects everyone to some extent, rural communities may be at most risk. Many workers in rural towns drive long distances to work, and a doubling of the cost of such drives may make it too expensive to make those commutes for a $12 or $14 per hour job.

Like the Chinese ideogram that can be read both as "danger" and "opportunity," the fuel crisis may, over the long term, be an opportunity for some rural towns, and could be the end of others. If it is too expensive to drive long distances to work, some workers and families may move closer to the work, further reducing the viability of some rural communities that are already struggling with long, slow declines in population.

But some businesses may decide to move closer to workers, and rural communities with the right economic development strategy to attract such businesses may have an edge--if they have good quality of life, attractive and vibrant downtowns, and .... broadband.

Community broadband projects can have a double impact. Properly designed community networks that extend affordable broadband into residential neighborhoods and along rural roads can bring new kinds of work from home opportunities to a rural workforce--getting them off the road completely and eliminating long commutes entirely. Fiber in business and industrial parks can attract businesses, which won't even consider some communities unless fiber services are available.

Rural communities will have to respond to the fuel increases with well thought out, long term strategies to help reduce commuting costs for their residents. Those that don't will see more workers and families moving away--reluctantly, but leaving nonetheless.

Tempe, Arizona's foray into community and municipal wireless has not worked out as expected. Like many other communities that have tried the same thing and have also failed, Tempe tried to avoid spending any money. They simply granted an untested wireless firm access to city lightpoles and structures for wireless equipment. The private firm had to bear the entire cost of build out. The wireless system was also not seen as reliable as a wired system, and the wireless firm has not been able to attract many subscribers.

The lesson learned is that there is no free lunch for community broadband. Communities that spend very little are getting very little in return, and if all of the risk is left in the private sector, the private sector won't come or won't stay long. Another lesson is that building out without a solid business plan to attract customers is also a non-starter. The right approach is to target underserved areas and/or to be able to offer innovative services that are not already available from other providers.

When I tell people that I don't use a GPS device in my car, they are often shocked. The seem to assume that anybody who has a day job in the telecom business should be using the popular devices routinely.

This article demonstrates perfectly what happens when blind faith in technology replaces common sense. A bus driver, staring perhaps a bit too much at the GPS on his dash, sheared off the top of a tour bus by trying to drive through a low tunnel, apparently because the route was displayed on his GPS. Fortunately, the occupants of the bus received only minor injuries. It could have been much worse.