Wednesday, September 6, 2000

By CAL BEVERLY
Publisher

We need to build a high-speed superhighway here in Fayette. And, no, I don't mean the kind paved with asphalt.

First, some background.

Few would disagree that the United States is leading the world through a profound change, a transition from the Industrial Age into the Information Age. Microchips power much of the planet's commerce, and barring some kind of catastrophe, that impetus propels us toward a world in which we all depend to some degree on linked computers to conduct our businesses, our entertainment, our communication with others.

And I'm not talking only about the Internet with its ubiquitous e-mail. That cell phone in your car or handbag is the user's end of a vast computer network; that episode of "Survivor" you loved likely got to you across air and wires via a sophisticated computer routing system.
Think of Internet access like a water pipe. Right now, most of us have a little garden-hose-sized Internet pipe. To stay plugged in at competitive speeds, we each need a 6-foot-wide water main. Broadband, using cable modems, is that big pipe.

A few communities recognize their stake in this all-encompassing shift in technologies. You may have read about nearby LaGrange, which is offering free or low-priced broadband hookups to its residents.
Neighboring Newnan is pioneering a high-speed cable TV and Internet service at rates lower than a competing large commercial cable company. That company cried foul when the city-owned light and water department got into the cable business, a publicly subsidized utility competing with private enterprise.
After all, Newnan Light and Water customers had paid for those city-owned poles and rights of way over many decades, the same rights of way the for-profit cable company had to pay rent on to string their cable.

It's an interesting ideological debate. Meanwhile, the world turns.
Newnan is not the first city to get into the cable business, but it may be among the most aggressive in its competitive attitude and range of services. It's not just the Disney Channel and local weather forecasts.
While the for-profit company was still offering 40 or 50 channels of cable entertainment, NL&W undertook a fiber optic cable expansion that offered subscribers high-speed Internet access as an integral basic service. A whole new subdivision SummerGrove advertises its homes prewired with high-speed, broadband Internet services.
NL&W even got Peachtree City approval to run its fiber optic cable at least 10 miles east of Newnan into the very economic heart of Peachtree City, the industrial park.
The printing plant owned by Peachtree City Mayor Bob Lenox has easy access to an increasingly essential broadband service provided by our (competing) neighbor city to the west.

And that's the irony. Antebellum Newnan is kicking our self-congratulatory Fayette butts in the competitive race for 21st century technological leadership in this area.
Newnan is wired, ready to facilitate its citizenry's entry into the new technology, while Peachtree City and the rest of Fayette hobble into the new century with slow-to-react leadership and buggy-whip thinking.
We may be a bedroom community right now, but increasingly those bedrooms must be in homes that allow its occupants access to the information economy. Communities that fail in this will wither like railroad towns when the last trains ran out.

It's not just highways 54 and 74 that are clogged, to the detriment of commuters and residents in both counties. The information highway that clichéd road to the future is poised to bypass Fayette, unless somebody in leadership starts doing some leading, instead of just reacting.
Telecommuting will increase, probably in tandem with the time wasted driving bumper to bumper from here to north Atlanta. Right now, the best we've got is 56K modems and spotty DSL service. Local telecommuters need high speed access today, and the need will only become more acute.
Peachtree City and Fayetteville require high-speed cable Internet access, but the major cable provider AT&T is moving with the speed of a frozen tree sloth and with all the customer service finesse of a Bronx cab driver.
Who can step in to accomplish this mammoth wiring job? Who can facilitate getting broadband access to the county's two major cities? Who can lead, even to the point of setting up a competing, state-of-the-art Internet access system?
I can think of two candidates, neither of which is a for-profit business, and one of which may be constrained by its 1930s-era charter.

In my opinion, the two candidates are local government and Coweta-Fayette Electric Membership Corp.
We pay for water and sewer services, provided by local governments. Many of us buy our electricity from the EMC.
At some point not too many years from now, broadband Internet access will be seen nearly as essential as these very basic utility services.
The places that have these services will prosper. The places that don't will spend their limited funds sweeping tumbleweeds out of their deserted streets.
Local government must be about more than just reacting to unwanted rezonings and unpopular annexations. We must get some forward-looking leadership into city council and county commission slots. It's fine to support a concept of a build-out population, but what do we do then? What will nurture and assure this county's continued prosperity?
Call me a heretic. But it looks like the fabled free market might not be up to this task; it's moving way too slow. More on this later.
Meanwhile, happy browsing.

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