Mesabi Daily News adds voice to broadband support

State PoliticsIt’s always a treat when the Mesabi Daily News is this right. Saturday, Bill Hanna and the gang offered a strong endorsement of high speed internet funding, calling into question the same frustrating observations of local lawmakers’ views that I wrote about last week.

The Mesabi Daily News added some good points to the discussion:

And what about the economic development component of improved and expanded broadband to communities? That alone should have all the region’s legislators fighting and fighting hard for every dollar they can get for better broadband on the Range.

Broadband is modern-day infrastructure so critical to the economy of rural Minnesota.

Small businesses represent the majority of job growth in the country. And many businesses, including the Delta Airlines customer service center in Chisholm, are fostering a new workplace environment that allows employees to work from their homes. But that requires good broadband.

In addition, national Small Business Administration statistics show that nearly 50 percent of all new businesses are home-based. And, of course, those businesses require good broadband.

We aren’t building a broadband infrastructure for the old economy; we’re building it for the new one. Ask your small businesses, tech firms and Fortune 500 companies what internet speeds they need from their home-based employees and satellite offices. We aren’t there yet. There might be partisan disagreement about how to make this happen, but there should be no doubt of the importance of the goal.

Comments

  1. Al Gustaveson says

    I have come to the regrettable conclusion that most iron range politicians are mired in the past, devoted to extraction of everything below and above ground over every other consideration. My broadband service amounts to the slowest 1% worldwide. How can we expect any growth from any person or company wishing, or willing to start, a new enterprise with results like that? Replacing our current crop of close minded representatives is the only way to re-start some critical thinking, not only about broadband, but 500 year required maintenance slurry pits, mono culture forest lands, and so many of the built in roadblocks so liberally funded by our ever-consuming local power structure. Nothing will change until we remove the bought and paid for dinosaurs we now are saddled with.

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