There are people who live completely off the grid. They heat their homes burning wood they cut themselves, grow their own food and read by lamp light. And if that is what they choose, fine. For most of us, though, there are a few fundamental conveniences we insist upon – electricity, indoor plumbing, hot and cold running water, those sorts of thing. These days, that list also has to include adequate Internet access.
It is welcome news, therefore, that there are efforts in La Plata to address that reality. We cannot expect to prosper or even participate in the 21st century if we ignore what has become a basic element of infrastructure.
As The Durango Herald reported (Dec. 28), the La Plata County Economic Development Alliance is working with the company SkyWerx to bring broadband Internet access to most homes in the county by the end of 2019. That could and should eventually include all local homes and businesses.
The idea is to connect the county with wireless Internet. The Alliance says that most rooftops in the county can be seen from existing tower sites, making line-of-sight connections possible almost everywhere. The thinking is that for many parts of the county, stringing fiber-optics or cable is prohibitively expensive.
This is a timely and worthwhile effort. As the Alliance rightly points out, more and more people can or must work from home or from locations other than a conventional office. For most of them, adequate Internet access is not a convenience or a luxury, but a business necessity.
The idea that attracting home-based workers to La Plata County is important as a form of economic development is valid, but it can too easily be overemphasized. For one thing, many of those jobs are inherently ephemeral. There is economic benefit, to be sure, but in most cases, if that person dies, moves or retires, that job is gone, too. It is not like the mine or the mill in the old days where local kids could find work.
That said, the fact is high-speed Internet access is crucial to any economic progress. Computers, tablets, smartphones and the Internet are simply part of the fabric of almost any business and, increasingly, of day-to-day life. While couched in the language of economic development – which, again, is legitimate – on a deeper level this plan simply recognizes that the Internet is no longer a novelty, but a 21st-century reality.
The only question is whether it is ambitious enough. The Alliance’s goal is to cover the county with high-speed access, which it is defining as 10 megabits per second. And for anyone who has dealt with a dial-up connection, 10 mbps is high-speed.
But 20 mph was fast in the 19th century, and ordinary Americans now routinely travel at more than 500 mph. Moore’s Law, which in essence says computing power doubles every two years, has held since first promulgated in 1965. And with the Internet being used for everything from looking up recipes to streaming movies or online games – let alone the fact that more and more things are talking to each other online – it is not at all clear for how long 10 mbps will be considered high speed.
Other countries already have national goals for universal connectivity with speeds as high as 50 to 100 mbps. The Alliance might think about upgrading speed at the same time as expanding coverage.
That quibble aside, the Alliance’s plan is an excellent offering, one that deserves broad countywide support.
