Live from the conference floor, Last Mile is here to bring you the highlights from the Digital City EXPO at the Radisson Fort McDowell Resort in Phoenix. Today and tomorrow, our road warrior reporters will bring you updates from the educational sessions and exhibits Wednesday and Thursday.
What a great start to the conference. Kicking off Wednesday’s schedule was Galen Updike, from the Arizona Government Information Technology Agency (GITA), who spoke to a full house of network consultants, private business representatives and education experts, but by a show of hands a majority were municipal representatives.
Updike
spoke about the transformative communication technologies and networking issues
facing the state of Arizona.
“As we connect more and more to the Internet and other communications, the more and
more that we will have evolve the infrastructure and change with those trends.”
The younger generations of people in the world have evolved with the technology, Updike says. Younger people think in more graphical and multimedia terms than older people today. As that evolution continues, so too will communications technologies. “My concern is not just for government, my concern is for all of Arizona,” Updike says. Ubiquitous and affordable advanced telecommunications services are a boon for business and economic development and for improved livelihoods. According to studies that Updike quoted, Arizona and its citizens could see a $8.5 increase in GDP from broadband deployments.
The growth for broadband in Arizona is key in the rural areas. “The quality of life will be complemented by broadband,” he says. However, the United States is way behind.
The role of government is critical
to broadband, Updike says, who, in turn, was critical of government leaders who are slow to adapt to the modern needs for better communications infrastructure.
In addition, the United States has to update its definition of high-speed and broadband services to provide connectivity at rates similar to European and Asian countries.
Broadband is also critical to education in the United Stats. Updike stated that 60 percent of the schools in Arizona are using a dialup connection. “Can you imagine trying to use rich media over a 56K connection?” he says. “We have to do something.”
Unfortunately, there are many barriers
to broadband deployments, Updike says. Broadband is not treated as a critical
infrastructure for a community, but as a private business entity. As such, there
is no middle mile infrastructure in most communities. “We have to remember that broadband
is for the people,” he says. Government leaders have to better manage supply
and demand for high speed connectivity.
Stay tuned for more as we bring the action from Digital City EXPO.
