Page 4B
ITown is gearing up to deliver broadband to your town
By Leslie Cauley
USA TODAY
07/25/2005
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20050725/itown25.art.htm
NEW YORK Veteran telecom executive Brian Thompson hopes to do for
broadband what the Bell System did for traditional phone service more than
100 years ago: Bring it to the masses.
Thompson's company, iTown Communications, is launching a program aimed at
bringing ultra broadband to rural America. How fast is that? Try blinding
100 megabits a second. Most residential offerings today top out at about
4 or 5 megabits.
The USA is currently ranked No. 12 in terms of broadband deployment,
trailing such countries as South Korea and Japan, where 100-megabit speeds
are common. By offering big broadband the USA can catch up, Thompson
believes.
These are the essential facilities we need to move ahead as a country,
says Thompson, a former MCI and Qwest senior executive.
West Virginia is the first test case. Last week, iTown announced agreements
to team with a couple of communities to bring broadband voice, data and
video to every resident who wants it. The initial phase will focus on the
Beckley-Bluefield and Wood County areas.
ITown is putting up $30 million to help fund the project. The rest will be
raised through state revenue bonds, Thompson says. We expect lots of
states to go down this road, he adds.
How it works: ITown short for Interactive Town will form partnerships
with communities across the USA. Those partnerships will set up separate
special purpose ventures to oversee construction of the actual networks.
The new high-speed pipes will be available to all comers from such
Goliaths as Verizon to tiny upstarts looking to get their foot in the door
that would lease access and provide services.
The idea, Thompson says, is to attract broadband players to rural America,
while also providing a launching pad for new services, from home-monitoring
systems to slick high-definition-TV offerings.
Paul Glenchur, an analyst at Stanford Washington Research Group in
Washington, D.C., predicts public-private partnerships will become
commonplace as the demand for broadband heats up and rural areas try to
keep pace.
You have to give communities the flexibility to deploy (broadband) to make
sure that their citizens have access to new services, Glenchur says.
There are skeptics. Mark Polen, executive director of the West Virginia
Cable Telecommunications Association, notes that 70% of the state's
population already has access to broadband. He's also doubtful that many
people want, or even need, a 100-megabit service.
Keith Burdette, president of the local business roundtable in West
Virginia's Wood County, has a different view.
In his hometown of Parkersburg, he says, residents can pick a dial-up
Internet service from Verizon or a cable modem service from Charter. A
100-megabit service via iTown, he says, would profoundly change the
competitive equation.
This is all about the consumer expanding opportunities and choices, and
hopefully assisting in a competitive marketplace with keeping the prices
down, he says. We're also hoping that fully wired community will be an
attractive asset as we market our wares to businesses around the country
that might want to locate here.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post.
_______________________________________________
MEDIANEWS mailing list
[email protected]
To unsubscribe send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
