Fiber-Wired City Attracts Managed Services Businesses

By Geoff Daily (12.27.06)
http://www.killerapp.com/content/publish/article_275.shtml

Does municipal broadband really make a difference to local business? And do higher network speeds have proportionally higher impacts? The evidence is still anecdotal, but it’s mounting. This is one of those anecdotes.


The Jackson Energy Authority, a publicly owned utility, recently built a fiber-to-the-premises system in its home town of Jackson, Tennessee and surrounding areas, and opened the system to service providers who sell telephone, Internet access and cable television to local residents and businesses.

And the dynamic bandwidth allocation on the fiber network gives companies the tools they need to support continued growth.

With the capacious bandwidth of fiber, companies like Xpert Systems Integration are free to dream up new ways to build their businesses. Beck says he’s considering several possible new services: “We’re looking at … moving further into the Microsoft direction with applications like Exchange 2007, as well as exploring some VOIP add-ons. We’re also considering offering document management services where companies can save images to the network from copy machines. And we’re investigating things like video for surveillance.”