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The Challenges of City-Built Information Networks

Posted by: Nate Berg

23 August 2009 - 5:00am

When Lafayette, Louisiana set out to build a high-speed fiber optic data network, legal challenges caused major delays. Other cities are likely to experience the same issues as they try to expand their information infrastructure.

Lafayette eventually did get its fiber optic network built, but doing it alone can be a challenge.

"As efforts proceed to improve the nation’s patchwork broadband infrastructure, most attention is focused on the $7.2 billion allocated in the federal stimulus law to bring broadband to rural and other underserved areas that still live in the dial-up world. Some of those places, unable to attract commercial providers, may find themselves with no other realistic option than to build their own networks, and they are likely to encounter many of the same hurdles that Lafayette and other communities have faced."

Full Story: Bandwidth on the Bayou
Source: Governing, August 1, 2009
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