Broadband connectivity is vital to local economic development and job creation, standing in importance alongside water, sewer, roads and electricity. Billy Ray Hall, a North Carolina economic development official told congressional officials June 28. Communities that lack adequate broadband access will fail to retain existing business or create new commerce through entrepreneurship – plain and simple,” Hall said.
Hall spoke at a state “field” hearing that is part of an overall review of U.S. agriculture policy being conducted by the House Agriculture Committee in advance of its consideration of the 2012 Farm Bill. The committee is holding hearings in Washington, D.C. in addition to the field hearings all over the U.S. The June 28 hearing was in Fayetteville, North Carolina where congressional officials heard some of the state’s agricultural leaders views on the Farm Bill.
In his testimony, Hall pointed out that North Carolina is working on policies to provide broadband access to it residents, but some people in rural areas are left out.
“North Carolina has had a nationally recognized state broadband authority since 2001 and has served as a national model for efforts to expand broadband access. Yet, approximately 17 percent of the households in North Carolina still have no high-speed Internet service available to them,” Hall said.
With the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act broadband programs and the FCC’s National Broadband Plan encouraging states to make policy changes to promote universal broadband access, some states are doing a good job of providing broadband and others are not, according to a June 21 study by the Pew Center on the States. But the recent recession has put a dent in many state budgets across the country. States face other challenges in providing universal broadband service to their residents.
“They face three key challenges: expanding availability of broadband, encouraging people to use it and ensuring high-quality service,” said Susan Urahn, managing director, Pew Center on the States. Just about every policy area that states manage could be affected by expanding this technology, she said, adding that states’ will play a pivotal role in whether the new national broadband plan succeeds.
The Pew study, which ranked states by how close they are to federal goals of providing connections of at least 768 kilo bits per second, found that North Carolina was proactively working on making broadband access available to all of its residents. North Carolina was ranked 25th on the list. But with 17% of North Carolina’s residents still without high-speed broadband access, how does it plan to fill the gap?
Read the study.]
