Look who's high-tech now -- Chattanooga

The focus of Tom Friedman’s latest column for the New York Times is on – of all places – Chattanooga, Tenn. Apparently the city transformed itself by investing in a huge, super-fast broadband network. The result was a flurry of new growth provided by tech-related companies.

The details are fairly interesting but here’s the bottom line: For just $20 billion, approximately what the Pentagon spends per day, the same system could be established in the nation’s 200 largest metro areas.

Here’s a slice of Friedman’s column:

“… By coming together to make the city an attractive place to live and getting both parties to agree to invest in a fiber-to-every-home-and-business network in a 600-square-mile area, Chattanooga replaced its belching smokestacks with an Amazon.com fulfillment center, major health care and insurance companies, and a beehive of tech start-ups that all thrive on big data and super-high-speed Internet. ‘We’ve gone from being a slowly declining and deflating urban balloon, to one of the fastest-growing cities in Tennessee,’ said (Mayor Ron) Littlefield.

“… The majority of Chattanooga homes and businesses get 50 megabits per second, some 100 megabits, a few 250 and those with big needs opt for a full gigabit per second, explained Harold DePriest, the chief executive of EPB, the city’s electric power and telecom provider, which built and operates the network. “The average around the country is 4.5 megabits per second.” So average Internet speed in Chattanooga is 10 times the national average. That doesn’t just mean faster downloads. The fiber grid means 150,000 Chattanooga homes now have smart electric meters to track their energy consumption in real time. More important … on July 5, Chattanooga got hit with an unusual storm that knocked out power to 80,000 homes. Thanks to intelligent power switching on the fiber network, DePriest said, 42,000 homes had their electricity restored in ... 2 seconds.” Old days: 17 hours.

“That network was fully completed thanks to $111 million in stimulus money. Imagine that we get a 'grand bargain' in Washington that also includes a stimulus of just $20 billion to bring the 200 biggest urban areas in America up to Chattanooga’s standard.”