economic development

Strip mall or industrial park, broadband drives commercial property values

Even the smallest businesses want fast, reliable and competitively priced broadband now. My barber has 100 Mbps service in his one-man shop so he can run an online business on the side. Dollar stores couldn’t exist without access to a global market for surplus merchandise. Those are just two neighborhood strip mall examples. Every sector of the economy depends on broadband to maintain fast, real time connections to customers, suppliers, partners and data centers.

Broadband access distinguishes one commercial or industrial area from another.… More

Broadband projects queued up for Monterey startups


Click for the presentation.

Independent projects are driving broadband infrastructure upgrades on California’s central coast. Maybe not as universally or as quickly as local entrepreneurs would like, but it’s happening. That was my message on Tuesday evening to the the Startup Monterey Bay Tech Meetup in Seaside.

I was asked to give an update on broadband development in the region. Those efforts center on the Central Coast Broadband Consortium (CCBC), an ad hoc group of local companies, agencies and other organisations in Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties that essentially have one thing in common: an interest in getting better, cheaper and more reliable broadband service in the region.… More

Fiber gems stand out on California's central coast

27 July 2016 by Steve Blum
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The industrial/commercial broadband Star Rating system developed by Tellus Venture Associates for the Broadband Consortium of the Pacific Coast shows a wide variation in high grade broadband infrastructure across San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

In the BCPC region, most commercial and industrial census blocks rated 1 Star or less, however there were ample instances of 2 Star, 3 Star and even some 4 Star Ratings. The highest aggregate rating for a city was found in San Luis Obispo, which rated 2 Stars overall.… More

Star Ratings show where to find high tech, industrial class broadband

26 July 2016 by Steve Blum
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Click to get the methodology, maps are below.

The best place on California’s south central coast – on the whole – to look for commercial or industrial real estate with access to fast, fiber optic broadband service is San Luis Obispo. But there are plenty of other cities in the SLO – Santa Barbara – Ventura county region with pockets of fiber availability that are as good or, in many cases, better.

In the course of a doing a regional broadband assessment for the Broadband Consortium of the Pacific Coast (BCPC), we developed a method for rating the availability of commercial and industrial-class broadband infrastructure.… More

Saving the environment doesn’t have to mean choking off local infrastructure and economic growth

1 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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You can protect the coast without littering it with red tape.

To keep Santa Cruz’s tech economy growing, basic infrastructure has to get better. Broadband is a big part of it, but so is housing, transportation and office space. A day long conference in Seaside in January – the kick-off event for the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership – brought business and government leaders together from Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties to talk about creating the right conditions for an entrepreneurial culture to grow.… More

Santa Cruz tech companies need housing to draw talent to attract investment

8 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Talent and attitude are the key to building a high tech economy in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. That’s the message from executives at four of Santa Cruz’s hottest start up companies, speaking at the kick off conference for the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership (MBEP) on 29 January 2015.

“There’s not a thriving scene of professionals in Santa Cruz yet,” said Carolyn Hughes, VP of talent and culture at Looker. Her company maintains a shared work space in San Francisco, allows employees to work remotely two days a week, and pays for rooms in a local hotel so commuters can work in Santa Cruz the other three.… More

Eastern California businesses challenged by booming bandwidth demand

25 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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You got a job to do.

“Five of you can take out my Internet and I have 93 rooms”, Dan Spurgeon, general manager of the Marriott Springhill Suites in Ridgecrest said. That’s despite his recent 50 Mbps upgrade, which he will soon need to re-double. He was one of several local leaders speaking at the Eastern Sierra Connect Regional Broadband Consortium conference in Ridgecrest on Thursday.

Rapidly growing demand for more bandwidth – 40% year after year according to Spurgeon – is a major challenge for businesses and government agencies in eastern California.… More

Sustainable economic growth on California's central coast demands cooperation


Yearning creativity seeks willing opportunity.

The economic drivers in California’s central coast region are agriculture and tourism, which account for just about half of private sector jobs in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.

But the region also has a well educated workforce that commutes to Silicon Valley and beyond – 24% of Santa Cruz residents, according to Bud Colligan, CEO of South Swell Ventures, who spoke at a regional economic development forum in Seaside. He talked about building a regional high tech economy by creating opportunities for people to work where they live…

The usual narrative about tech on the Central Coast is about companies that have left or missed opportunities (Seagate, Digital Research, Borland, SCO, etc.)

… More

Chattanooga notches up a major geek milestone with Ironman selection


I’ve been waiting a long time for an excuse to post one of my Ironman finisher photos.

When people outside of the industry ask me “What do you do?”, I usually answer “Swim, bike, run. Eat, sleep. Repeat.” If pressed, I’ll admit to doing something or other with broadband, then quickly steer the conversation back to triathlon, particularly the ultra-distance form of the addiction sport. So I can’t resist the temptation of a press release from the World Triathlon Corporation and the Chattanooga Sports Committee, announcing Ironman Chattanooga, a new race beginning in 2014.… More

Eastern California lights up in July

“We have started and we will finish,” said Michael Ort, CEO of Praxis Associates, the company behind the Digital 395 project. “There have been people who have bet against us and that’s a great motivator. It’s going to happen.”

The ambitious, ARRA-funded network will connect Reno to Barstow, in the California desert east of Los Angeles, installing nearly 600 miles of fiber optic cable. Most of the path runs along U.S. 395, down the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada through towns like Carson City, Mammoth Lakes, Bishop and Ridgecrest.… More