New broadband "infrastructure of ideas" lifts town into the future.

Forty years ago the US industrial city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, was voted the dirtiest in the country. But today it is attracting the sort of business investment that makes Australian cities envious.

The key ingredient in Chattanooga's transformation is broadband. The city made famous by the song about the eponymous choo-choo last year became the first in the US to deploy fibre-based broadband at speeds up to 1 gigabit-per-second to its entire population, with an accompanying high-speed wireless service.

According to the city's chief information officer Mark Keil broadband has been a key element in the region's ability to attract investment from companies such as Amazon, which has offered 1500 jobs so far at two massive new distribution centres being built in the region. In May the German automaker Volkswagen opened a manufacturing plant in Chattanooga, and has announced it will invest US$1 billion and create 2000 jobs.

"It is very hard to find a global industry that doesn't think in terms of technology, so that does sweeten the pie by having technology as part of your ingredients," Keil said, adding that he had also been in discussion with high-technology companies such as Cisco.

But with other US cities also deploying high-speed networks, Keil acknowledged that it was important to move quickly.

The city has rebranded itself as Gig City and is now on a quest to attract entrepreneurs. Local and national investors have launched the Gig City Think Tank, which offers a prize pool of US$300,000 to entrepreneurs and students who come up with the best ideas for how to use the network.

"Our guess is that in two years we won't be so unique, and that's why we want to strike now and reach everybody that is going to develop these applications for the faster cities," Keil said.

Not that locals are having much trouble figuring out how to use it. Keil said when the network was launched EPB received 90 orders from doctors, radiologists and imaging specialists for speeds up to 1 gigabit-per-second.

"Literally within a week they were up and going and using it in their businesses."

The city is also deploying 6000 sensors to monitor everything from the uptake and usage of its bicycle rental scheme to the water quality in the Tennessee River.

"We ship a lot of chlorine up and down our river on barges, so we are testing out a chlorine sniffer that just smells the air and detects whether there are any chlorine leaks on the barges," Keil says.

It is also wiring up 28,000 street lights to better regulate power usage, which is estimated will save approximately US$1 million each year. Another project is poised to deploy augmented reality information across much of the city.

"We hope to have built an infrastructure of ideas, and have geeks and people and talking."

Keil visited Australia as a guest of the City of Greater Geelong to speak at the annual Sustainable Economic Growth for Regional Australia (SEGRA) conference. Geelong councillor Rod Macdonald said there were many similarities between Geelong and Chattanooga, and had no doubt that his city could benefit from the $36 billion National Broadband Network (NBN) in a similar way.

"Chattanooga has really gone ahead in leaps and bounds," Cr Macdonald said. "It has adapted to new technology, and I see Geelong really changing and broadening its economy. The NBN complements that work."

The idea of using high-speed broadband as a lure for high-tech companies is catching around the world. The Tasmanian government, for instance, identified broadband as a key economic enabler, as the NBN is scheduled for completion there by 2015 – six years ahead of the rest of the country.

A government spokesperson said leveraging opportunities from the NBN was an integral part of the overall investment attraction strategy within the government's Economic Development Plan, and had led to projects such as a collaboration between the CSIRO and the University of Tasmania in a state-wide sensor network.



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/gig-city-an-inspiration-for-regional-towns-20111124-1nw9s.html#ixzz1esIwU9PP

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Nov 27^th, 2011 at 2:04pm:




That's right drah, as the next generation sit in their cardboard box that they call home, the will have their just reward from the greedy generation that took away their hope.....NBN bring it on !!!

The libs would take that small reward from the hands of our children so that they will sit in a cardboard box and read the local news in the local paper.....don't spread your wings my children for you will see what we have done to you.