[1st-mile-nm] NM Jobs Council wants to give business a slice of the broadband pie

[Tom Johnson]

All:

Governments at all levels have often -- regularly -- given subsidies in a
variety of forms to drive economic growth.  Think building of canals,
transcontinental railroad, highways, and other tax forgiveness or rebates.

Has NM government, again at all levels, considered giving long-term (at
least 5 years) broadband access to startups?  After all, it's not as though
such access would be a major consumable.  If the fiber lines are in, what
is the real cost to deliver 50-100g service?

Tom



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============================================
Tom Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)                                    505.473.9646(h)
Society of Professional Journalists <http://www.spj.org>   -   Region 9
<http://www.spj.org/region9.asp> Director
*Check out It's The People's Data
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http://www.jtjohnson.com                   tom at jtjohnson.com
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On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 12:12 PM, Richard Lowenberg <rl at 1st-mile.org> wrote:

> NM Jobs Council wants to give business a slice of the broadband pie
>
> Dec 23, 2015
>
>
> http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/blog/morning-edition/2015/12/nm-jobs-council-wants-to-give-business-a-slice-of.html
>
>  New Mexico needs to create 140,000 economic base jobs in the next 10
> years to get back to pre-recession employment levels, and potentially half
> of those are at risk if the state doesn’t do something about its lack of
> adequate broadband.
>
> That's according to New Mexico Jobs Council estimates, and in response the
> organization is gearing up for a legislative push for better broadband for
> New Mexico business.
>
> New Mexico Jobs Council consultant Mark Laotian is part of an effort to
> seek upwards of $300,000 in legislative funding for a statewide broadband
> infrastructure study.
>
> “There’s federal money pouring in to wire up schools, which the state’s
> done a really good job on,” said Mark Lautman, a consultant for the
> council. “What they’re missing is the discussion about businesses.”
>
> The Jobs Council has drafted a broadband infrastructure bill asking the
> Legislature for upwards of $300,000 for a detailed study of what it will
> cost to get the state up to adequate download speeds.
>
> “We know it’s going to cost tens of millions of dollars to get this done,”
> said Charles Lehman, another consultant with the council, who added that
> part of the study will focus on how to secure outside money in addition to
> state appropriations for the infrastructure work that needs to be done.
>
> Lautman said that, as a result of discussions with regional stakeholders
> over the past three years, lack of adequate broadband has surfaced as one
> of three primary issues affecting job creation in the state. The issue is
> largely a rural one, though metropolitan areas are also affected, and
> Lautman said there are pockets in Albuquerque that are “not built out.”
>
> “As soon as we saw the rankings, there was motivation to start trying to
> find out if there’s a legislative fix to this,” he said. “Everybody knows
> that work is getting more dependent on the internet.”
>
> Lehman cited study estimates indicating that about one-third of businesses
> in the state don’t have adequate broadband, with that number nearing half
> in rural areas. Business leaders and economic developers also said they
> don’t expect the situation to improve unless something is done. About a
> quarter of them reported losing potential business as a result.
>
> “Businesses just won’t come here because we don’t have sufficient
> broadband,” he said.
>
> Lautman said the study will hopefully help determine some key issues
> around broadband service in the region, such as minimum speed requirements,
> carrier diversity, pricing and redundancy.
> “All of these are questions about the minimum level of service needed in
> 10 years for this economy to build out the way we’re saying,” he said.
>
> The bill, which the council hopes to get introduced in the upcoming
> legislative session, will also ask for about $600,000 to complete some
> critical high-priority rural infrastructure development the council says is
> ready to go.
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
> 1st-Mile Institute     505-603-5200
> Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
> rl at 1st-mile.org     www.1st-mile.org
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> 1st-mile-nm mailing list
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> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm
>
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