Dear Mr. Behan:
I would like to comment on the letter that Cathe Hoszowski wrote (“Bleak Picture”). Like Ms. Hoszowski’s older children, I had to move to a major urban area—Salt Lake City—to pursue academic and career opportunities.
In my opinion, I think the real issue is why our local area is so unappealing to talent retention and job creation. I have performed business/technical consulting in Utah, Nevada, Washington, and Oregon, and can state without question that you must have an advanced telecommunications infrastructure just to be on the same playing field.
By “advanced telecommunications infrastructure,” I mean substantially more than dial-up phone lines and obsolete microwave towers dotting the landscape. I refer to extensive fiber optic backbone and metro transport, new or updated Class 5 local switching, and true “broadband” services, not repackaged services long obsolete.
I disagree that we have the resources to change our predicament. Our telecommunications infrastructure is a joke, little better than Third World quality. Consequently, this substandard infrastructure turns us into third-class citizens on the global economic playing field.
Perhaps many feel that only very large urban areas can offer advanced infrastructure to attract employment. That is far from the truth. There are rural areas—some less populated than Rainy River District—which have delivered Fiber-To-The-Home and advanced employment opportunities.
We have been promised funding to build infrastructure, but where is it? According to NDP leader and local MPP Howard Hampton, the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. alone has $300 million just sitting there, yet we are only offered token amounts.
Similarly, the federal government makes tens of billions of taxpayer dollars available through the Export Development Corp., a Crown corporation for questionable investments in foreign countries.
I would strongly encourage Cathe and other concerned citizens to demand changes from their elected officials. That’s why we vote for them, right?
Signed,
Jerry Korman
