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43

www.read-wca.com

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,” 3

rd

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 21

st

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,”

15

th

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