Category Archives: Internet access speed

What actually gets companies to locate in Chattanooga?

So we heard about Chattanooga all during the school “unification” referendum. I turns out Chattanooga really does have something that attracts business (no, not a unified school system; if you want to go back into that, I’ve got the references available). What really attracts businesses to Chattanooga is fast Internet broadband access.

Christopher Mitchell wrote for Planetizen 30 April 2012, Should Your City Build Its Own Broadband Network?

While on a site selection visit in Chattanooga, a CEO asked about broadband access. When told that the slowest tier on Chattanooga’s community fiber network was 30 megabits per second, he turned to his IT adviser for a translation. Upon hearing “that’s more than we can get in our headquarters presently,” the company cancelled its other planned visits and located its new site in Chattanooga.

That’s right, Chattanooga really does have one thing going for it: high speed Internet access.

Why does that matter?

Continue reading →

Local state legislative delegation at the Country Club

At the State Legislative Luncheon at the Country Club yesterday, sponsored by the Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce, I found it more interesting what the legislators didn’t mention than what they did.

Frequent attendees told me the audience was much larger than in previous years, and one attributed that to the recent school consolidation referendum. Sitting side by side were Chamber Chair Tom Gooding and FVCS President Sam Allen.

Jeff Hanson introduced the legislators. He’s the Chair of the Chamber’s Government Affairs Council (GAC). He said they are seeking more participants. Hm, they have an Energy and Environment Policy Committee that’s chaired by someone from Georgia Power….

Tim Golden announced that the local delegation’s highest priority was to get $32 million for a Health Science Center for VSU. VSU Interim President Dr. Levy was there, as was former president “Dr. Z” as Tim Golden called him.

I was just talking to someone from SGMC in the food line about how it would be nice if the Industrial Authority would promote healthcare industries more. It’s good that the legislators are doing that, although it’s not clear that there are not other things that should be even higher priority.

Tim Golden also wants to remove a sales tax Continue reading →

AT&T DSL outage until 8AM Sunday 5 June

AT&T is upgrading DSL service and requires more than a full day, until 8AM Sunday, to do it.

So I happened to wake up and wanted to check something online. No DSL service. (Yes, I rebooted the DSL modem.) Determined the modem was working and the problem was beyond it in AT&T’s network. Thought maybe there’s a tree down on the line.

Called AT&T. Message said “high speed” Internet technical support hours are 6AM to 11PM, so please call back then for best service. Excuse me? The Internet is supposed to shut down overnight?

Stayed on, outwaited the robot, got a tech in the Philippines, Continue reading →

Expert says Valdosta lags behind Thomasville in Internet speed for business

Let’s leapfrog Thomasville in the 21st century equivalent of roads, rail, and airports: Internet speeds!

Here’s another point from Chris Miller at the 2011 Economic Summit, according to the VDT story by Dawn Castro 18 May 2011, :

“Thomasville didn’t have hi-speed internet, so the process of moving products quickly was not possible,” he said, “With Rose Net hi-speed broadband, it is now able to work 25 times faster. That one simple step boosted economic product growth, and as we all know, the technical industry creates a wage growth path.”


Georgia Internet Speed Results by www.speedmatters.org

So if the Chamber wants, as it says, knowledge-based businesses and jobs, Continue reading →