Speaking of rural development

Posted on | October 31, 2006 | 1 Comment

See, this is the kind of thing that Senator Blanche Lincoln was talking to me about in her interview with The MicroEnterprise Journal last week.

There’s a highly mobile IT workforce of independent contractors out there who are good candidates for the high quality/low cost of living the rural life. And they’d make wonderful contributions to the economic development of any community they deigned to grace with their well-paid presence.

But there’s stuff those communities need in order to attract that kind of population. And one of the most important items on that list of stuff is affordable high-speed Internet access.

Of course, if we sit around and wait for the Baby Bells to bring broadband to rural areas, this idea is doomed from the start. They’ve been teasing Congress for years with “well, if you get rid of these regulations, then we’ll invest in rural broadband … ” and “well, if you get rid of those taxes and give us these hefty tax breaks, then we’ll invest in rural broadband … ”

And then, of course, when they’ve got the goodies they want, they still don’t invest in rural broadband.

So, since the telecomms have evidently decided to be mercenary, disingenuous a**holes about the whole thing, that makes those rural villages and counties excellent candidates for public utility wifi.

That would bring in the telecommunications infrastructure that would make the area more attractive to that mobile IT workforce and it would create some good jobs in those rural communities. Frankly, it would make more sense to me for Delaware County, NY to be talking about setting up municipal wireless broadband (or the rural equivalent of ‘municipal’) than it does for San Francisco and Philadelphia to be doing it.

And, at that point, about the only thing those small villages would be missing would be Starbucks.

[tags]rural development, municipal broadband, wifi, independent contractors[/tags]

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