Horse-and-Buggy Infrastructures:
More politicians will eventually wake up and smell the fiber.
There was at least one speaker who put it squarely on the shoulders of local and state politicians ?who just don?t get it? when it comes to understanding what?s needed to keep this country viable. It was refreshing to hear a politically accurate statement come out of D.C.
In Iowa where 80 percent of the state is rural, they built the Iowa Communications Network (ICN), which was the nation?s first fiber-optic network owned and administered by the state. Its original intent was so rural students would have the same access and advantages that students had in urban Iowa.
The first locations were lit in 1993. By 1997, the ICN logged 182,386 hours. In 1999, there were more than 800 sites with session hours at more than 400,000. This network has improved the infrastructure of Iowa and they have increased the applications to telemedicine and other capabilities.