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Yeah, DocF, let's keep an already overpopulated county employee roster going. Funny how when the sky is falling, and Tom says the end is near..especially if department heads don't cut their rosters to save the county money..none of them come from HIS office. The county really needs people like a public information officer earning over 40-grand a year. What does she do all day? Yes, DocF, we need MORE county employees. Good God!

Agree on all points. This is one initiative we can't put off. Better broadband coverage will help us attract and retain jobs, as well as a younger tax base that's less reliant on costly social services. Money well spent.

One particular instance where an improved broadband infrastructure might have helped Rockingham attract work-from-home jobs: In April, e-commerce company GSI shut down its Martinsville call center, putting 279 workers on the street. GSI plans to expand its work-from-home model, meaning they're hiring people to answer customer service calls from their own homes. (Story here: http://www.roanoke.com/business/wb/201967 ) This is a rapidly expanding business model in the United States as companies know their customers prefer dealing with U.S. operators.

What do you need to get a job like this? High-speed Internet access in your own home. If Rockingham's infrastructure were up to snuff, we might've had a chance to grab some of those jobs. As it is, whole swaths of our population are ineligible for these decent-paying jobs, many that include benefits, simply because Time Warner and Embarq won't run cable to large parts of the county.

This is one project our commissioners are undertaking where money spent has a real chance to give all of us, not just a select few, the opportunity to attract and create jobs.

Why is the Wilson network profitable and prices lower than the telco/catv rate? They are supplying a small area with a high number of customers. In a town or city you have 100s of people per mile of cable placed. The cost of construction and maintenance is minimal and as noted in a previous comment the government has no right-of-way and other regulation to deal with. They can change regulations to suite their need. Cities and Counties entice their residents to push for these changes at the State level, “for the good of the people” creating less competition and in the end higher prices.

High population areas are the bread and butter areas for a private business to earn revenue to expand their network to more rural areas where there may only be 10 or fewer customers per mile. Areas like Wilson are necessary to keep the price of the same service to these rural areas close to the same as the price for urban areas unless you want the rural areas to pay 5 or more times the cost for the same service.

The proposal by the Rockingham County Commissioners, to build a fiber ring throughout the county and spread out from there to provide every county resident high speed internet access would compete directly with the telcos and catv removing their incentive to advance their development. If government intrusion into private enterprise is allow to continue we will end up with total government run monopolies of all business because the people unknowingly drive out competition by demanding their government restrict all competition through the force of law.

In recent years we are seeing more and more government run enterprises. Why? Because people do not understand what free market economies really are and people have become conditioned to think government is to provide us with everything we need. We have not had free market capitalism for many years, we have State capitalism, a big difference. http://mises.org/daily/3735

The only way a private company can become a monopoly is if government regulation creates it and is primarily the reason for higher costs of services like healthcare. Government creates the problem then steps in to fix it. Read this: http://mises.org/story/621

If you believe the Post Office is a good example of a government run business and there is open competition to them read this: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=170
Only the government is permitted to deliver first-class letters.

Anyone asking for Government run business is asking for and will get a socialist country.
If you don’t believe it read this: http://fee.org/articles/not-so-fast/dont-cry-argentina/