Georgia: Racing ahead, or left behind

In the August issue of Georgia Trend magazine, an in-depth article by John W. McCurry ticks off an impressive list of the state’s economic triumphs:

“Georgia is now No. 1 in filmmaking in the world. We have a strong telemedicine network that provides access to vital healthcare services in rural parts of the state. A growing number of major financial companies call us home. What do these industries — and hundreds of others — have in common? The need for speed.”

Maintaining its first-rate broadband infrastructure at top quality and top speed will be one of the state’s perpetual economic and educational challenges. Getting it to people still stuck in what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in an April article, called the state’s “Broadband Desert” has been a challenge for some time. It’s one that both private providers and the state’s political leadership must rise to meet, and some are already stepping up impressively.

Metro Atlanta, of course, is the Georgia broadband infrastructure’s mainframe, so to speak, but it’s not limited to that area.

“Companies like TSYS wouldn’t be able to do what they do in Columbus without that infrastructure,” Tom Croteau, deputy commissioner for global commerce at the Georgia Department of Economic Development, told Georgia Trend. “The same is true for the U.S. Army’s Cyber Command headquarters in Augusta. We have a growing infrastructure in those cities. It’s not to the level of Atlanta at this point, but they are coming along quickly.”

Blogger and columnist Charlie Harper, whose work is published weekly in the Ledger-Enquirer, recently wrote an in-depth series about how the demographic and geographic diversity of Georgia has created multiple “Georgias,” with their own distinctive strengths and concerns — a diversity that has supplanted the old “Two Georgias” paradigm of metro Atlanta and everywhere else.

But in terms of viable internet access, Georgia’s is still very much a Haves and Have Nots reality, even if the balance is tipping more toward the former.

The AJC’s April story noted that 16 percent of Georgians still do not have high-speed access, almost all of them in rural areas: “While all public schools in Georgia have broadband internet, many students don’t.” The story cited a University of Georgia survey of rural Georgians, only 29 percent of whom reported adequate internet connectivity.

But there is progress. Mediacom recently began providing 1-gigabit broadband service in 52 rural south Georgia communities where internet access, what there was of it, was sometimes in the glacial 10-megs range.

AT&T’s Fixed Wireless Internet system, launched in April, provides high-speed service in rural areas through a combination of outdoor antennas and indoor routers. At least 14 south Georgia counties are now served by that system, and “Georgia is the first state in the country to have it,” according to Bill Leahy, AT&T president for Georgia and the Southeast.

These are encouraging signs of how this ought to go: Full speed ahead, with everybody having a fair chance to be along for the ride.

This story was originally published August 15, 2017 at 4:52 PM with the headline "Georgia: Racing ahead, or left behind."