No question that California has a lot at stake with respect to broadband (major Internet players like eBay, Google, and others are there), movie and (much of the) television industry, infrastructure companies (like Cisco) but then so does the United States overall. There seems to me to be a woeful lack of leadership when it comes to this economic catalyst both at the Federal and at the State level and Governor Schwarzenegger just demonstrated his lack of leadership on this matter.

At least the Governator has some level of awareness as he exhibited weakly at last Tuesday’s talk to a broadband conference, though according to this CNet article he’s a proponent of letting the free market take care of making broadband ubiquitous, affordable and faster.

Hmmm…let’s see: The Internet wouldn’t exist had it not been for the Defense Advanced Research Programs Agency (DARPA) creating it; the "free market" is traffic shaping on their networks dictating what can-and-cannot run on their networks; and US broadband speeds are laughingly slow compared to the rest of the world.

In the same way I don’t need a meteorologist to tell me the sun is shining, I don’t require someone to inform me as to why the US needs faster broadband speeds (both download and, most importantly, upload speeds so we can serve from our homes and businesses if we choose). If you, like me, use the Internet in any meaningful way you feel it and understand it down-to-your-toes.

The Sacramento Regional Research Institute, like a good meteorologist, looked at the concept strategically from several miles up and Schwarzenegger referenced the study in his talk:

An increase in California’s broadband Internet usage could lead to significantly higher levels of employment and payroll in the state, according to a new study by the Sacramento Regional Research Institute (SRRI). The Economic Effects of Increased Broadband Use in California shows that with a 3.8 annual percentage point increase in the proportion of the adult population using broadband, California could see a net cumulative gain of 1.8 million jobs and $132 billion of payroll over the next 10 years. (Study PDF press release here).

An earlier (Jan 2006) study (PDF) by MIT/Carnegie Mellon also reinforces the economic impact of broadband:

"We find that between 1998 and 2002, communities in which mass-market broadband became available by December 1999 experienced more rapid growth in (1) employment, (2) the number of businesses overall, and (3) businesses in IT-intensive sectors."

So it’s not just me that sees the sun is shining, so where do we go from here?

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