Posts Tagged ‘Gov. Bev Perdue’
Tuesday, September 27th, 2011
 Johan Wibergh, Sony Ericsson EVP, head of business unit networks A new report shows that doubling the broadband speed for an economy increases GDP by 0.3 percent.
The report was conducted jointly by Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC), Arthur D. Little and Chalmers University of Technology in 33 OECD countries, and quantifies the isolated impact of broadband speed.
A 0.3 percent GDP growth in the OECD region is equivalent to USD 126 billion. This corresponds to more than one seventh of the average annual OECD growth rate in the last decade.
Only one U.S. city makes the list of the top ten globally in broadband download speeds, according to a recent study.
This Ericsson study also shows that additional doublings of speed can yield growth in excess of 0.3 percent (e.g. quadrupling of speed equals 0.6 percent GDP growth stimulus)
Both broadband availability and speed are strong drivers in an economy. Last year Ericsson and Arthur D. Little concluded that for every 10 percentage point increase in broadband penetration GDP increases by 1 percent.
Growth stems from direct and indirect effects
This growth stems from a combination of direct, indirect and induced effects. Direct and indirect effects provide a short to medium term stimulus to the economy. The induced effect, which includes the creation of new services and businesses, is the most sustainable dimension and could represent as much as one third of the mentioned GDP growth.
“Broadband has the power to spur economic growth by creating efficiency for society, businesses and consumers,” says Johan Wibergh, head of Business Unit Networks, Ericsson. “It opens up possibilities for more advanced online services, smarter utility services, telecommuting and telepresence. In health care, for instance, we expect that mobile applications will be used by 500 million people.”
During a keynote speech at Broadband World Forum 2011 in Paris, Wibergh said: “We expect a huge increase from the current estimate of around 1 billion people with broadband access to about 5 billion in 2016, most of whom will have mobile broadband. Connectivity and broadband are just a starting point for new ways of innovating, collaborating and socializing.”
Erik Almqvist, director at Arthur D. Little, says: “Until now there has been an absence of hard facts investigating the effects of broadband speed on the economy. This unique empirical study may help governments and other decisions makers in society make more correct tradeoffs and policy choices.”
Results support polices that recognize broadband importance
“These results have been derived using rigorous scientific methods where the direction of causality, data quality and significance levels have been appropriately tested,” says Erik Bohlin, Professor at Chalmers University of Technology.
“The results of this study support governmental policies that recognize and promote the importance of broadband.”
Unfortunately, many states have restricted the efforts of municipalities to create their own, higher-speed broadband networks due to lobbying by commercial providers, which make substantial contributions to state legislature political campaigns that seem to have paid off. It paid off most recently in North Carolina, where the Republican controlled state legislature passed such a bill restricting municipal broadband efforts despite the fact that seven NC cities had the lowest download speeds vs. price nationally.)
This study is the first of its kind in that it quantifies the economic impact of increases in broadband speed in a comprehensive scientific method using publicly available data.
Tags: Arthur D. Little, Chalmers University of Technology, Ericsson, Gov. Bev Perdue, impact of broadband speed on GDP, increasing broadband speed increased national GDP, Municipal broadband, NC, NC Legislature, OECD countries
Posted in Economic Development, Internet/New Media, IT, North Carolina, Studies, surveys, reports | Comments Off
Monday, May 23rd, 2011
 RALEIGH, NC – North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue failed to sign or veto a bill restricting further municipal broadband development in the state, asking the legislature to rethink provisions in the bill. By failing to sign the bill, Gov. Perdue expressed her displeasure, but it will become law just the same without her veto.
The bill, supported by commercial providers such at Time Warner Cable, which has made campaign contributions to many legislators and Gov. Perdue, received national attention as Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig urged her to veto the bill in an open letter on the Huffington Post Friday. It was also opposed by the North Carolina League of Municipalities.
North Carolina has the dubious distinction of having seven of the ten worst deals for broadband Internet service in the nation according to a study by Bandwidth.com. Time Warner Cable did just last week substantially increase the speed of broadband Internet service to its Research Triangle area customers, although not to the 100MB a second level of municipal broadband providers.
Opponents to the bill argue that especially in more rural areas of NC, the only way for municipalities to get the ultra-high speed broadband service they need to attract 21st century businesses was to build it themselves. They also see Internet service as a utility as necessary to modern life and business as water or electricity.
As we reported previously, the fastest and cheapest broadband networks in the Southeast are municipal networks.
Time Warner Cable maintains the bill “creates a level playing field,” so municipalities do not have unfair advantages over consumers.
Passed by the GOP-led NC House and Senate, the bill requires municipalities to get voter approval for any funds borrowed to build municipal broadband efforts, forbids them from selling below cost, and limits service areas, among other restrictions.
Gov. Perduec said, “There is a need to establish rules to prevent cities and towns from having an unfair advantage over providers in the private sector,” but added this bill could restrict consumer choice. “Instead, I call on the General Assembly to revisit this issue and adopt rules that not only promote fairness but also allow for the greatest number of high quality and affordable broadband options for consumers,” she said in a statement.
It’s too bad Gov. Perdue lacked the courage to express her convictions by vetoing the bill. He suggestion to the GOP legislature to reconsider its provisions are likely to go unheeded. While pro-business groups lobbied for this bill, they are pro-big business and represent those with lobbying dollars. We’re pro-business too and have reported the commercial provider point-of-view on the bill (leading Slashdot.com to point to one of our early reports for the “incumbent” position.
Nevertheless, we think this bill is wrong-headed and will prevent many in NC from getting the type of superior service these municipal networks provide.
- Allan Maurer
Tags: bill restricts NC broadband, Gov. Bev Perdue, Huffington Post, Lawrence Lessig, NC broadband bill to become law, NC Legislature, Time Warner Cable
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Friday, May 20th, 2011
 Lawrence Lessig RALEIGH, NC -A bill to restrict municipal broadband efforts in North Carolina has drawn national attention. Lawrence Lessig, the Harvard Law professor well known for his expertise in Internet legal matters, has written an open letter on the Huffington Post urging NC Gov. Bev Perdue to veto the bill. Perdue has until midnight tonight to decide whether or not to sign or veto the bill.
“North Carolina is an overwhelmingly rural state. Relative to the communities it competes with around the globe, it has among the slowest and most expensive Internet service. No economy will thrive in the 21st century without fast, cheap broadband, linking citizens, and enabling businesses to compete,” Lessig writes in the post.
That’s why several municipalities in the state, such as Wilson, Salisbury and others, created their own city networks.
“These networks have been extraordinarily effective. The prices they offer North Carolinians is a fraction of the comparable cost of commercial network providers. The speed they offer is also much much faster,” Lesig notes.
Lesig notes that many communities and businesses in and out of the state oppose the bill.
Lesig argues, as we have repeatedly, that the Internet is as much essential infrastructure in the 21st century as electricity and water.
Stand with the majority of NC citizens
“And communities that rely solely upon private companies to provide public infrastructure will always have second-rate, or inferior, service,” he writes.
We should note that Time Warner Cable just this week boosted its Internet speed substantially for all NC Triangle area subscribers, but still falls short of the speeds offered via municipal broadband networks in the state such as Wilson’s.
Lesig urges Gov. Perdue to “Stand with the majority of North Carolina’s citizens, and affirm the right of communities to provide not just the infrastructure of yesterday — schools, roads, public lighting, public police forces, and fire departments — but also the infrastructure of tomorrow — by driving competition to provide the 21st century’s information superhighway.” — Allan Maurer
Additional resources:
Tags: Gov. Bev Perdue, Huffington Post, Lawrence Lesig, Legal, muncipal broadband networks, municipal broadband battles, Municipal broadband in NC, NC, restricting municipal broadband, Salisbury, Wilson
Posted in Carolinas, Internet/New Media, IT, Legal, North Carolina | 1 Comment »
Monday, May 9th, 2011
RALEIGH, NC – Despite the fact that seven of the ten cities with the worst broadband deals from commercial providers are in North Carolina, the NC General Assembly has accepted Senate changes to its bill restricting municipal efforts to build their own broadband networks. The bill now goes to NC Gov. Bev Perdue for signing, although she has not commented on her position.
Five NC cities that have already created municipal broadband networks, Wilson, Salisbury, Morganton, Davidson and Mooresville, are exempt from most of the bill’s restrictions, although their coverage areas would be limited.
Telecom firms such as Time Warner Cable have argued that the municipal broadband networks have an unfair advantage, while the municipalities complain that the commercial providers do not offer high speed service in their areas and the lack hurts business.
Cable and phone companies have launched strong lobbying efforts to restrict municipal broadband efforts in other states. Frequently significant contributors to political candidates and able to mount well-funded lobbying, they have frequently been successful.
The NC bill requires municipalities to hold public hearings on plans to build broadband networks, separate the business from other municipal government services financially, and prohibits offering services below cost. It also requires voter approval in a referendum to borrow money to build the networks. It does exempt cities that can show that more than 50 percent of their households have no access to high-speed Internet access or only have satellite provider access.
Seven of the ten worst cities in NC
Bandwidth.com, which does broadband mapping, shows that seven of the ten U.S. cities with the worst broadband connections at price per Mbps are in North Carolina. They include Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Raleigh, Cary, Durham, Wilmington, and Charlotte. Columbia, SC, is also on the list. South Carolina is also considering a bill to restrict municipal broadband.
Nationally, 130 communities own wireless broadband networks.
We have reported previously that the fastest and cheapest broadband networks are city run in the south.
A group called the Institute for Local Self-Reliance says that restricting municipal broadband would hurt job creation in NC.
Additional resources:
The municipal broadband battles rages on
Here’s an excellent resource with extensive links on municipal broadband efforts:
Baller Herbst Law Group: Herbst Law
States that have already passed laws limiting municipal broadband:
State Barriers to Community Broadband Services
Wikipedia entry on municipal broadband
Municipal Wireless Snapshot report:
Fast Company: Time Warner’s Antics in Wilson, NC Give another reason to snip the cable
List of municipal broadband network organizations.
An older, but contrary view from the Reason Foundation:
Municipal broadband fails again
Fastest and cheapest US broadband systems are city run in the South
For more on the commercial providers positions:
www.techjournalsouth.com/news/article.html?item_id=7334
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Tags: Davidson, Gov. Bev Perdue, Mooresville, Morganton, Municipal broadband, NC General Assembly restrict city broadband efforts, Salisbury, seven of ten worst broadband deals in NC cities, Wilson
Posted in Carolinas, Economic Development, Government/Defense, Internet/New Media, North Carolina, Telecommunications | 1 Comment »
Monday, January 31st, 2011
 - Ed Johnson, SVP with G Data Software USA
DURHAM, NC – G Data Software Inc., a German security software company that says it created the first commercial antivirus product, is opening US headquarters in a building on the former Nortel Meridian campus. Initially employing four people, the operation intends to staff up to nine by the end of the year and be north of 50 in three years if growth goes as planned.
Ed Johnson, senior vice president of the company’s North American operations tells us that “North Carolina is a good fit for us. We wanted to be on the East Coast and near a technology hub. It also did not hurt any that NC Gov. Bev Perdue made a trip to Germany last spring to invite German firms to locate in the state,” Johnson says.
Johnson was previously chief information officer at LGS Innovations, COO at Blue Wolf Technologies Inc., and CIO at the NC Department of Justice. He says G Data is essentially opening its US operations in start-up mode.
The company is also opening a call center in Greensboro operated by Dynamic Quest, which does outsourced technology services. “Their team has been to Germany for training and knows our software as well as we do,” says Johnson.
While G Data Software’s product is sold in more than 80 countries and in 24 languages, it realized, says Johnson, that it could never be considered a global company without establishing a foothold in the United States.
The company’s antivirus and security software is ranked number three in the world and has an enviable 99.999 percent effectiveness rating. “It’s consistently as high or higher than the best in the world,” Johnson notes.
It achieves that high degree of effectiveness via a double-scan engine.
Trying to stay ahead of cyber criminals and their malware is a roller coaster ride for antivirus programs, explains Johnson. “When an AV company issues updates, its effectiveness goes high. Then the bad guys get their number and it goes down. That’s when you use one scanning engine. We use two. When one is down, the other has its back. It’s like having a double defensive line against the Cowboys – if the first guy doesn’t get a guy coming up the middle, the second one is going to.”
The G Data products also update every hour rather than once or twice a day. Even so, Johnson says, “The system resources it requires are so low that you won’t even notice it’s there.”
Johnson admits that grabbing market share from the other established players in the field, including Norton, Mcafee, and others, is no easy task.
However, it can boast that AV-Comparatives, a non-profit organization that publishes independent Anti-Virus software tests, has awarded G Data InternetSecurity 2011 the Gold seal of approval in two categories for its outstanding protection technologies. AV-C said, Over the past 12 months, AV Comparatives tested 20 security solutions for their effectiveness in protecting against known and unknown threats. G Data Internet Security 2011 consistently impressed with its results, outpacing all other solutions in its breadth and scope of coverage against malware.”
It’s products sell for $29.99 to $39.00, the same price range or lower than competitors.
The company, founded in Germany in 1985 officially opens its new offices February 14. — Allan Maurer
Email TJS Editor Allan Maurer: Allan at TechJournal South dot com.
Tags: anti-virus software, double-scan engine, Ed Johnson, G Data Software, Gov. Bev Perdue, Greensboro call center, opening US office in Durham
Posted in Carolinas, Economic Development, IT, North Carolina, Security | Comments Off
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