Rob Selkow Reporting
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – CDE Lightband hopes recent upgrades to its system with faster internet service will attract new high tech business to the city.
Construction of a new fiber network makes for a “smarter” grid that will minimize and manage outages plus provide much faster service. CDE Superintendent Brian Taylor explains the benefits of a full gigabit of symmetrical internet bandwidth. “That means your upload speeds and your download speeds are the same,” he said. The change is noticeably faster service for everyone from gamers to hospitals or other businesses that move large volumes of data over the internet.
“You think about someone that’s playing a game,” Taylor said. “They’ve got the video going, they’re playing with competitors in other states, talking to one another and that’s eating up a lot of bandwidth.” The high end gamers don’t want to deal with any hesitation to the game. “With the gig service and its higher speeds, they’re not experiencing any hesitation,” Taylor said.
More important than speed for online games is the economic development potential the gig service offers. Taylor says data centers or call centers looking for a prime place to operate would do well to look at Clarksville, which CDE has rebranded “Gig City.” The average download rate in the US is about 7 Mbps. A gigabit connection is about 100 times faster and allows consumers to utilize high bandwidth applications such as Skype, Netflix and many others more effectively.
Gigabit services are becoming increasingly more important in communities all over the country, such as Kansas City and its project with Google and their planned expansions to Austin, TX and Provo, UT. Chattanooga is seen as a model for attracting high tech business in this way and Taylor is hoping to have similar success here in Clarksville.
Officials with the Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Development Commission have held meetings with CDE so they can better sell the benefit to prospective companies. “I think this will be a great recruitment tool for Clarksville to bring more industry in and more tech jobs,” Taylor said, adding that those working to bring new business to Clarksville, “understand the gig service and what it can do for the community. They’re on board and are helping us get the word out.”
The electric utilities of Tennessee have been instrumental in bringing FTTP and gigabit services to the communities in Bristol, Chattanooga, Morristown, Tullahoma and right here in Clarksville.
CDE Lightband is the municipal power provider in Clarksville, TN serving over 64,000 electric customers and 15,000 broadband customers.
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