Wake up call for elected leaders

Submitted by acohill on Thu, 06/09/2005 - 07:28

James Carlini, who writes in ePrairie, an Midwestern online business and technology magazine, has a terrific article taking Illinois leaders to task for shirking their responsibilities to the the public at large and to businesses and communities in the state.

It's hard to improve on Carlini's thoughts, so I'll include just one item from the article. You can read the entire piece here.

" The big breakthrough that some people are touting is getting DSL for $14.95 a month. I no longer consider that as broadband capability. If DSL was at $14.95 five years ago, I would have said that was something. This is now a fire sale that’s five years too late.

While this is to keep interest in antiquated copper-based services, it’s not giving real bandwidth to the average consumer. Compare it with what’s being offered in other countries. We should be getting one gigabit for $14.95. Now that would be something.

Gigabit technology is based off fiber-optic infrastructure. No incumbent telephone company wants to install that to the house when they can keep milking copper, which has been paid for many times over across the decades.

Until the leaders of states get more up to speed with what’s really viable for securing their state’s global economic position, we will be stuck with half measures and the equivalent of eight-track tapes in an age of MP3 players."