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Fiber Optic Backbone Broadens Butler County Bandwidth |
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 9:45:10 AM - Middletown Ohio |
Nearly half of the capital investment in the U.S. is now spent on enhancing information technology. Business Week reports that 35 percent of the growth in the U.S. GDP is now driven by IT investment.
Butler County believes that these market realities mean the restructuring of our economic development strategy.
Providing bandwidth to the community is a cornerstone of our new economic development strategy. To accomplish this, we are building a fiber optic backbone network of 96 strands of fiber extending nearly 100 miles throughout the county. The combined cost of this network is $8-10 million. Butler County is contributing $2.75 million to the project, with the remainder coming from a private business partner.
The Butler County Fiber Network will deploy more than 9,000 fiber-miles throughout the county and connect every community in Butler County to a high-speed broadband network. The county will own 12 fibers, Miami University will own 12, and our business partner will own the re-mainder of the fibers.
The "open-access" fiber system will assure market competition by allowing anyone wanting to offer telecommunications and information services to our community access to the system. Local businesses will be provided with needed bandwidth, prices decrease, and the introduction of new technologies to our market will be facilitated.
Regions that can attract, grow and retain firms and industries proficient at deploying information technology, in addition to producing it, will be at a competitive advantage.
Fostering the development of an entrepreneurial culture and access to ven-ture capital, developing human capital through partnerships with local schools and institutions of higher education, having a community that scores high on the "quality of life" index and having a transportation infrastructure conducive to economic growth are all vital elements of a successful strategy.
With proactive participation from local government in meeting the New Economy challenges we can provide the infrastruc-ture necessary for our businesses to compete and create a network capable of improving education and employment opportunities for low-income residents. A better quality of life in Butler County for residents and businesses.
Source: Middletown EDC
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