Backers Promote Communications Technology to Lure Jobs to Rural Florida

Speaking to more than 250 attendees at the Florida Rural Economic Development Summit in St. Augustine, Patrick Lien, director of broadband services for the North Florida Broadband Authority (NFBA), took aim at the states continuing unemployment problem, pushing increased high-speed Internet in rural areas to lure companies to the states 32 rural counties. Lien offered the keynote address to the summit on Thursday morning, focusing on the need for increased communication technologies in rural Florida -- and reminding listeners about global competition.

We are operating on a global stage, insisted Lien, who noted that China will soon have more English speakers than any other nation.

Looking at the portions of the state and nation that are underserved, Lien said that it was expensive for private companies to provide high-speed Internet to these areas.

Its not anybodys fault, said Lien. Its simply a matter of economics.

The North Florida Broadband Authority, funded by federal stimulus funds, is a government agency looking to expand high-speed Internet in the following rural counties: Baker, Bradford, Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lafayette, Levy, Madison, Putnam, Suwannee, Taylor, Union and Wakulla.

Lien offered an overview of the challenges and the opportunity for public and private organizations looking to deliver Internet services in rural areas.

What we have here is pivotal opportunity, said Lien, who believes that increased communications technology will lead to greater economic development and job creation with remoter workers in the technology industries. He also maintained that expanded communications technology will offer a boost for education and health care in the rural counties.

Lien said that the increased communication technology would reshape the rural counties in the Sunshine State dramatically, comparing it to the railroad development that changed Florida at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries and the expansion of air conditioning.