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Wire & Cable ASIA – May/June 2014
From the Americas
Telecom
“The Gig”, a taxpayer-owned fibre optic
network in the American South, is a
standout in a nation woefully laggard in
Internet connection speed
Chattanooga, Tennessee, has what city officials and
analysts say was the first and fastest – and one of the least
expensive – high-speed Internet services in the United
States. For less than $70 a month, consumers in “Gig
City” enjoy an ultrahigh-speed fibre optic connection that
transfers data at one gigabit per second.
“That is 50 times the average speed for homes in the
rest of the country and just as rapid as service in Hong
Kong, which has the fastest Internet in the world,” wrote
Edward Wyatt of the New York Times. (“Fast Internet Is
Chattanooga’s New Locomotive,” 3rd February).
The locomotive reference is a nod to the trains that
sped through a gap in the Appalachian Mountains at
Chattanooga during the Civil War, connecting the eastern
and western parts of the Confederacy. In the 21st Century,
remarked Mr Wyatt, it is the Internet that passes through
the city, at lightning speed and attracting talent and capital
along the way.
With a new population in Chattanooga of computer
programmers, entrepreneurs, and investors, signs of
growth since the fibre optic network was switched on four
years ago are unmistakable. Sheldon Grizzle, founder of
Company Lab, which helps start-ups to refine their ideas
and bring their products to market, told Mr Wyatt, “It
created a catalytic moment here.”
From the Times ’s review of Chattanooga’s recent history
it would seem an unlikely place to experience such a
moment. Named America’s most-polluted city in 1969,
for its largely unregulated base of heavy manufacturing,
over the last two decades it cleaned its air and fashioned
itself into a destination hub in eastern Tennessee. When an
aggressive high-tech economic development plan and an
upgrade of the power grid by the city-owned utility EPB,
the former Electric Power Board, moved the city toward the
one-gigabit connection, Chattanooga was ready.
Build it and they will subscribe . . .
In 2009, a $111 million federal stimulus grant offered the
opportunity to expedite construction of a long-planned
fibre optic network, and EPB borrowed the remaining $219
million of the network’s $330 million cost.
David Wade, the chief operating officer for the power
company, said it became quickly apparent that customers
would be willing to pay for the one-gigabit connection
offered over the network. The city thereupon became a
magnet for businesses requiring faster Internet service than
that available in Seattle, New York and San Francisco.
Although city officials say “the Gig” created about
1,000 jobs in Chattanooga in the last three years, the US
Department of Labor reported a net loss of 3,000 jobs in the
city over that period, mainly in government, construction
and finance. While it cannot be proved statistically how
much the superfast network has contributed to economic
activity, the Chattanooga system is at the leading edge of
a push for ever-faster Internet and telecommunications
infrastructure in a country that badly lags much of the world
in the speed and costs of connectivity.
Lafayette, Louisiana, and Bristol, Virginia, which have built
their own gigabit networks, are among the American cities
experimenting with municipally owned fibre optic networks
that offer the fastest Internet connections.
Google is building privately owned fibre systems in Kansas
City, Kansas; Kansas City, Missouri; and Austin, Texas, and
the company recently bought a dormant fibre network in
Provo, Utah.
 In Mr Wyatt’s view, the thrust comes in the nick of time.
He wrote: “Telecommunications specialists say that if
the United States does not keep its networks advancing
with those in the rest of the world, innovation, business,
education, and a host of other pursuits could suffer.”
Labour
Volkswagen of America did not resist
unionisation of its Chattanooga factory –
but its satisfied workers did
The city of Chattanooga attracted another kind of attention
in February when, in what amounted to a referendum on
the UAW (formerly United Automobile Workers of America),
employees of Volkswagen’s plant there rejected union
representation by a 712-626 margin. The defeat, which
came despite VW’s neutrality on the issue, casts doubt on
whether the UAW can hope to penetrate any foreign-owned
assembly plant in the South, where organised labour has
been traditionally regarded with suspicion. The president
of the UAW has said that it must organise plants owned by
German and Asian automakers if it is going to survive.
Of about 1,500 Volkswagen workers eligible to vote, 89
per cent cast ballots after a preliminary period of intensive
media attention and political arm-twisting. As reported
by Detroit Free Press business writer Brent Snavely, one
leader of the Tennessee state senate had threatened to
block any incentives for future Volkswagen investment in
Chattanooga if the union were voted in. (“VW Workers in
Tennessee Reject UAW in Devastating Defeat for Union,”
15th February).
“We think,” said Gary Casteel, the UAW regional director
who led the unsuccessful campaign, “it was unfortunate
that there was outside influence.”
Another disappointed commentator, President Barack
Obama, was rather more forceful: Tennessee’s governor
and one of its senators, he said, “are more concerned about
German shareholders than American workers.”
Volkswagen did not oppose the UAW at least in part
because of the union’s openness to the creation of a
BigStockPhoto.com Photographer: Aispl