Governor Working On Statewide Broadband
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One of the governor’s priorities this year is bringing high speed broadband to everyone in the state.
He made the announcement in his state of the state last week, and is already working to make that happen.
While Alabama has a number of cities, a large portion of the state is rural.
Online access is becoming crucial for daily life, which is why Governor Robert Bentley organized a forum with the major players.
“This will help education, this will help healthcare, this will help economic development. It’ll even help public safety. There’s so many things we can do if we have the interconnectivity all over the state,” said Gov. Bentley.
The forum focused on exactly how this is all going to happen.
Consultants came in to discuss the details, including the limited time-frame.
Federal dollars are available for this project, but it needs to get off the ground in the next two months.
“I think for a state to have an overall broadband strategy and to involve the school districts and the service provider community because the governor has made it clear he wants this to be a private sector driven solution, it’s a very difficult process. It takes cooperation from all of those communities but I see a lot of positive things in Alabama,” said Joe Freddoso, one of the broadband consultants.
As schools continue to lean on internet learning, it’s becoming more important for them to have access inside and outside of the classroom.
While most of Alabama’s schools already have the infrastructure in place, this new initiative should help make it even more affordable.
“As far as help to the education I’m not quite sure because as they said, 92 percent of the school systems in the state of Alabama already have high speed broadband. So it’s not going to be such a help to the school systems but what it will do is drive down the price of these services and increase competition,” said Quincy Minor with Information Transport Solutions.
