Mayor Wright has asked the Citizens of Hickory and the surrounding area to help support efforts to convince Google to select the Hickory area to bring a "gigabyte to the home." This is not a superfluous venture. Unlike efforts in the past, which were marketing and civic pride in nature, this effort holds real potential for tangible, dynamic economic development. This effort could truly change the economic momentum in such a way that it could transform this community for generations to come. If you want to do something for your children, and dream of leaving them a truly positive asset to build their future upon, this is it.
One year ago, Danny Hearn formed the Future Economy Council of Catawba County. I have been allowed to participate in that group and in doing so I have been allowed to form opinions of what can be done to create building blocks for our community's economy and quality of life. Most of us believe that these two ideals go hand in hand. In the past however, we have seen these ideals placed in silos, and some people seemed to state a belief that this was a zero-sum venture. It seemed that they were saying that Economic Commerce (and profit) had a detrimental effect on quality of life issues.
What we have learned from this community's struggles, over the last decade, is that you either grow or you wither, there is no maintaining security through the status quo. Maintaining current status leads to mediocrity, mediocrity leads to malaise, and malaise eventually turns to depression. Look at what we have seen and please tell me that this is not the evolution of what happened to Hickory in the previous decade.
And here we come to the game changer. One Gigabit per second data communication to the home would be 200 to 300 times faster than what we have now. It will allow an all encompassing web of communications between the average family, in the Hickory Metro, and people and entities throughout the world. It will allow you to do High Definition or even 3-D teleconferencing with people on the other side of the world. It will allow Doctors to do 3-D diagnostics of you and allow multiple diagnoses from the best doctors around the world, if you ever had a critical illness. It will allow real time transfer of schematics to develop and manufacture products world wide. This will even allow people to watch 3-D movies and sports from their home. The possibilities are endless and would have a direct impact on our way of life and the quality of our lives.
The best part is that this can easily be facilitated, because we have some infrastructure already in place. We can easily crank up the manufacturing and transportation of the fiber via Corning, Commscope, and Draka. Google can run the fiber-optic spine right down along the railroad tracks from their facility in Lenoir through Hudson, through Granite Falls, through Rhodhiss, down old 70, into downtown Hickory, right past L-R, down Highland Avenue, out through Conover, and Claremont, and right on down the line.
This could possibly enable incubators and other creative entrepreneurs to rehabilitate buildings along the railroad tracks. Lenoir-Rhyne University could take full advantage of its proximity to the fiber network. The Engineering Center, ASU-partnership, and possible ASU Millennial campus could surely take full advantage of the multi-dimensional, audio-visual and technological capabilities that this network would enable. The implementation process of the fiber could easily be expedited because minimal impact would be placed upon transportation and traffic as this fiber is laid. I think the possibilities of integrating this process with the existing rail corridor and other infrastructure in place makes Hickory an ideal candidate.
From this fibre-optic data spine, we could spread the cable to offshoots of the rail lines in Newton, Catawba and eventually to the 4 corners of Catawba County and hopefully the populated areas of the surrounding Greater Hickory Metro. This is real economic revitalization if we can make it happen.
The next step will naturally be the passenger rail announced a few years ago from Asheville to Salisbury and points beyond and also building a rail connector between Newton and Denver that gets us to connect to the High Speed rail line proposed between Raleigh, Charlotte, and Atlanta. Imagine students being able to ride a train to school at L-R. Imagine being able to ride the train to Raleigh, Atlanta, Washington, and Wilmington, while watching movies or working on you computer.
Imagine the possibilities, if you only believe in what we are capable of. Imagine what we can do if we will stand together and fully support this cause. Please spread the word, because I truly believe that we can make this happen and we need to get ahead of the curve on this issue. It is time to show the nation what Hickory is capable of when given the opportunity and the proper tools to succeed.
Broad Band!!!
Light Rail to Charlotte: One Investment Worth Making
Addendum: Google Fiber to Communities - We need your help in getting our voices heard on this issue. Click the link below to let Google know that you care about this issue and want this pilot program brought to our area. I will also place a link in the Problems and Solutions links at the top right corner of this blog. And please tell everyone you know. (Note - If you do not have a Google e-mail account or user name, then you will need to sign up for a free Google account to fill out the survey).
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Monday, February 22, 2010
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3 comments:
Thom,
I've been living in Hickory for the past 3 & a half years and this is the first thing to happen that is truly great for business. I hope the business sector and government pull out all the stops to get Google to lay some backbone. FTTH (Fibre to the home) at 1 gig or above is fantastic. The local telcos and cable co's will never do it until pushed. This will be their wake up call. I was "quoted" a service a couple of years ago from the telco. Yes, a DS-3 (45meg/s) line will cost you $7800 a month, but we don't offer it in your area". Like I say, this is a wake up call. More gigabyte's to the people.
Best Regards
Pat Appleson
www.appleson.com
As much as I would love to see this happen, and I hope it's real, I'm skeptical because the only person who seems to know much about it yet is Rudy -- and it's been a great excuse for him to get his picture in the paper a dozen more times.
It also seems to come suspiciously on the heels of "free internet for Union Square", which has Sally and Jill Patton's fingerprints all over it as supporting their special interests.
My suspicion is that a lot of energy and resources could be put into this, only to find out that the project is being cut back and -- whoopsie! -- Union Square happens to be "the perfect test location" yet again.
Maybe it's all a coincidence of timing; maybe I've lived here too long and seen how the system works at City Hall.
I'd be more inclined to support it if I saw other, credible individuals out there who were involved and said it was real and Hickory was truly a contender.
Right now, though, all I've seen is that Rudy sprung it on everyone -- including the rest of City Council -- at the last minute at a City Council meeting and it's got a very short time line to be put together.
After his prior years in office and the crackpot schemes he's supported, I think the people who know about this - if it is legit -- need to ask if that's the face they want to put on a project they want to succeed.
I'd rather not be quite this jaded, but experience has taught me that anything with Mayor Wright's fingerprints on it is probably shady.
Anyone else -- locally, who is respected or that a real person living in Hickory might be able to talk with -- putting their name on this project?
I really would love to see this happen throughout the City, and for it to be a legitimate program that we could get. But so far, all I've seen is a politician touting yet another secret program that requires money and a lot of trust -- which I don't have in the proponent.
This comes from a lot higher up than Rudy. I knew about this 10 days before the Mayor announced it.
Google would laugh at a project centered around Union Square. Please go look and see what Google is looking for. They are looking to bring fiber to the home (not businesses) at 1 gigabit per second. That is 300 times faster than the average connection in this area. HDR posted 100 times faster and it is a lot faster than HDR gives credit for. The average connection to the home is 3 megabits per second.
Also these are hard wired connections. This is not a wireless system. The system at Union Square feeds off of the wireless system that is used for the Police Security cameras that were facilitated by and through stimulus money (the american recovery and reinvestment act of 2009).
I don't blame you for thinking about conspiracy theories, but understand they have to mesh and City of Hickory isn't in the league to play games with Google.
I think the Mayor is behind this, because it's a no-brainer and we have to do something positive to change our City's economic plight. I'll give he and Mick kudos if they can make this happen and they will deserve it, along with several others in this area.
Myself, I don't care how it gets done and/or who gets the credit. I just care that it gets done, because I truly understand what a game changer this can be.
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