The passenger pigeon, Pony Express, and air mail letters were all wonderful in their day but today communication occurs at the speed of light — 186,000 miles per second.
In the last five years, 20 percent of new economic activity in developed economies such as the U.S. has been based on high-speed communication. Google, Amazon, and other Internet-based companies owe their success to their ability to transfer data instantly to their customers, suppliers, and work centers. Maine has recently taken the first steps towards high-speed connections. Now is time to finish the job.
Although “connecting to the internet” sounds fine, not all Internet connections are equal. They range from slow to instantaneous. Slow is 2 million bits of information per second (2megs). Information moving at this speed is equivalent to driving down the long, rutted road to your grandfather’s cabin. You have to proceed slowly, dodging pot holes, washouts and the occasional squadron of turkeys.
Internet access speeds of 10 megs are equivalent to a good town road, fine for most purposes but not for heavy traffic. At 100 megs you have joined the modern world, and at 1,000 megs (one billion bits per second or one gig) you are traveling at the speed of light on an eight-lane autobahn. There is no delay, and connecting with colleagues in New York, Paris, or Tokyo from an office in Bangor is just as easy as if they were sitting beside you.
Beginning in 2008, a public-private partnership leveraged funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and private equity firms to fund “ConnectMe” and develop an 1,100 mile, high-speed fiber backbone across Maine. It is called the “Three Ring Binder,” and it connects many educational institutions, The Jackson Laboratory, and some businesses and municipalities. For those with access, it is superb, world class.
But this high-speed roadway has a big problem: there are not enough exit ramps. Information might be whizzing along at the speed of light close to your home, but connections over “the last mile” are rudimentary at best. Most of us still live on an old rutted dirt road.
The reasons for slow off-ramp connections are understandable:
— Most internet users are satisfied with the status quo.
— The number of internet-dependent small businesses in Maine is still small.
— It costs Fairpoint and Time-Warner money to run fiber, and the payback in rural Maine is slow.
— And, municipalities are strapped for cash. Most have not fully examined the benefit of high-speed connectivity for their local economies.
Cutting-edge economic development in the future will require high-speed connectivity. If we can find a way to provide access at a reasonable cost, Maine will be home to new jobs in finance, health care, telemedicine, entertainment, education — and jobs yet to be imagined.
These jobs will provide good income to people who would rather live here than in downtown Boston or Chicago. Soon we will see an accountant in Old Town doing the books for specialized clients throughout the U.S. Or, a medical specialist in Presque Isle will be able to adjust the insulin of an elderly lady on Vinalhaven via telemedicine, avoiding expensive hospitalizations.
How do we get there from here? In the 1930s, America decided that the shack at the end of the dirt road deserved electricity and a telephone just as much as did suburbs and cities. A combination of government programs and negotiated arrangements with private industry made it happen. As a result, in the following decades, millions of people were lifted from poverty.
We can do it again. High-speed Internet access is now an essential infrastructure investment — like clean water, roads and airports. Maine is already one of the best places on the planet to live, so if people can start a modern business or find a great job, why not move here? Now is the time, not five or 10 years from now.
The devil is in the details of any public-private partnership. The government’s role is to stimulate private investment, insure reasonable costs for consumers, and balance the risk between investors and taxpayers. The private sector’s role is to unleash entrepreneurial imagination, treat shareholders, employees, and customers fairly and build a successful enterprise.
Speed-of-light access to the world’s new digital economy is now a necessity for our citizens and businesses. There are now several bills before the Legislature that will connect Maine’s back country roads to the faster highways in the world.
Sen. Geoff Gratwick, D-Bangor, represents Bangor and Hermon in the Maine Senate.