Leverage Technology for Economic Development, Health, Energy and Educational Opportunities

Finding funding for high-speed Internet in state budgets can be a daunting task, but the rewards of potential greater economic growth, more accessible health care, energy savings and increased educational benefits make the investment more than worth it.

Core Policies to Leverage Technology

• Economic Development spurred by Broadband
• Telehealth
• Energy Savings from Networking Technology
• Distance Learning

Economic Development

Wide-spread adoption of affordable high-speed Internet can be a key tool to rejuvenate lagging economies and sustain state commerce. It is estimated that widespread adoption of high-speed Internet will add $134 billion to the U.S. economy annually and create 1.2 million new jobs per year. Further, high-speed Internet can be key to drawing new businesses to an area, no matter how remote or small. As evidence of the impact of high-speed Internet on individual communities, a recent study found that for every 1% point increase in state high-speed Internet penetration, employment is projected to increase by 0.2% to 0.3%. Further, the availability of high-speed Internet in communities added over a 0.5% increase in the growth of business establishments.

The following are a few programs working to leverage this economic benefit from high-speed Internet:

• One of the most successful programs in using technology to spur economic development has been the e-NC Authority. By investing in long-term projects related to high-speed Internet build-out and adoption, the program aims to create communities that can sustain high-value jobs and a greater quality of life through the creation of wealth on a local level. This includes grants for seven e-NC Business and Technology Telecenters, which serve as small business resource centers, providing business start-up counseling, low-cost office space and technological resources, in economically-distressed communities.
• Cedar Falls, Iowa saw an economic revitalization after building a municipal high-speed Internet network. A report by the Telecommunications Coordinator Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities stated, “[O]ne can not disregard the direct link between the “Dawn of a New Age” and the City’s ability to meet the increasing demand for access and dissemination of information... [o]ne of the best first steps toward acquiring economic well-being is to ensure that you have quality infrastructure including a first class high-speed Internet network.”
• In Bristol Virginia, two technology companies, CGI-AMS Inc. and Northrop Grumman Corp., built data centers in nearby Russell County that will create 1,500 good-paying jobs. They were attracted in part by the availability of OptiNet, an 800-mile fiber-optic network operated by Bristol Virginia Utilities (BVU).
• Lake County– a small county in central Florida – began generally offering private businesses and municipal institutions access to one of Florida’s most extensive, municipally-owned high-speed Internet networks, with fiber optic connections to hospitals, doctor offices, private businesses, and 44 schools. Since the opening of their municipal network, Lake County has experienced approximately 100% greater growth in economic activity–relative to comparable Florida counties.

Resources:
MIT/Carnegie national study "strongly" suggests connection between broadband and job growth
Communications Workers of America - Speed Matters, Affordable High Speed Internet for All
Connected Nation - The Economic Impact of Stimulating High-speed Internet Nationally
S.E. Gillett, W.H. Lehr, C.A. Osorio - Measuring High-speed Internet’s Economic Impact
R.W. Crandall and C.L. Jackson - The $500 Billion Opportunity: The Potential Economic Benefit of Widespread Diffusion of High-speed Internet Access
Educause White Paper - A Blueprint for Big Broadband
Black & Veatch - A Study of the Economic and Community Benefits of Cedar Falls, Iowa’s Municipal Telecommunications Network
Virginia Business - Bristol Virginia Utilities fiber network is revitalizing SW VirginiaBristol Virgini
Christian Science Monitor - High-Tech Brings Rural Towns Back to Life
The Baller Herbst Law Group - Capturing the Promise of Broadband for North Carolina and America

Telehealth

States can help make health care more accessible and affordable by utilizing modern day technology. By merging technology and health care, state policymakers can create new opportunities for medical professionals and patients to interact in more efficient ways. The use of technology in health care -- often called telehealth -- utilizes high-speed Internet applications to remotely monitor patients, facilitate collaboration between medical professionals, exchange medical data and images, and instantaneously provide efficient emergency service to remote areas. The potential benefits of telehealth include saving lives, increasing access to and quality of medical services, providing better treatment for chronic illness, reducing medical costs and reducing patient travel.

Although telehealth has been around for years, its promises have not been truly realized. The obstacles to achieving the full potential of telehealth include the lack of widespread high-speed Internet technology, the way in which Americans pay for health care, and how physicians are regulated by the government. Key policies that address these barriers to the adoption of telehealth include:

• Build-out of high-speed Internet technology: Telehealth provides many benefits, such as transmitting detailed images, remotely monitoring patients at home, and utilizing advanced teleconferencing technology for collaboration, trainings, and patient visits. In order to capitalize on the benefits of telehealth, however, states need to support the deployment of sophisticated and affordable high-speed Internet services, especially to unserved and underserved regions, such as low-income and rural areas. Last year, the FCC, recognizing the benefits of telehealth programs, allocated $417 million for the construction of 69 statewide and regional high-speed Internet telehealth networks. State legislatures need to invest in high-speed Internet deployment and take advantage of federal grants so that their residents can start to use advanced technological applications such as telehealth.
• Reforming medical licensing rules: Regulating health care professionals by way of licensure reduces the harm from inconsistent and negligent medical care, but also acts as a barrier to telehealth programs. State legislatures have oversight responsibility for medical boards, dictate medical practice policies and establish licensure fees. It is of utmost importance, that state licensure regulations and legislative policy support the provision of health care across state lines.
• Changing medical reimbursement policies: The absence of consistent, comprehensive reimbursement policies is another serious obstacle to the integration of telehealth into health care practices. For telehealth technology to achieve sustainability, states must require Medicaid, a significant payer for medical services, and encourage private insurers to develop standards for reimbursing providers for telehealth services.

Source: the.honoluluadvertiser.com

Resources:
Progressive States Network - Telehealth: Merging of Technology and Medicine Leads to Improved Healthcare
Bio-Medicine - Latest Studies Show Consumer-Directed Solutions Like Consult A Doctor Lower Costs While Providing Greater Access to Affordable, Quality Health Care
Center for Information Technology Leadership - The Value of Provider To Provider Telehealth Technologies
Communication Workers of America - Telemedicine Helps Save Time and Lives in Smaller Hospitals
Internet Innovation Alliance, Advancing Healthcare Through High-speed Internet-Opening Up a World of Possibilities

Energy Savings

High-speed Internet can be a crucial tool in cutting Americans’ energy costs through the promotion of telecommuting and more efficient energy use. For example, interactive monitoring of homes and offices can help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and our carbon footprint while offering large economic payoffs. The implementation of smart grids would help manage the intermittency of renewable, environmentally friendly, energy sources.

Optimizing the management of energy supply and demand means a reduction in the likelihood of crippling regional blackouts or the need for keeping costly reserve power plants online. It is predicted that wide adoption and use high-speed Internet applications can achieve what many estimate is a net reduction of one billion tons of greenhouse gas over ten years, which, if converted into energy saved, would constitute 11% of annual U.S. oil imports.

States should promote telecommuting: High-speed Internet access is essential for enabling more Americans to occasionally work from home, commonly referred to as telecommuting. It is estimated that telecommuting may create billions of dollars in savings annually across the economy, by allowing businesses to save on physical space and related expenses and employees to spend less time commuting (better for environment and productivity). For example:

• Reduction in fuel use: If everyone who could, took full advantage of telecommuting, the reduction in miles driven would save $3.9 billion a year in fuel and the time savings would be equal to 470,000 jobs -- reducing our dependence on foreign oil, traffic congestion, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions at the same time. Even incremental changes could have a huge impact. For every 10% increase in worker telecommuting, fuel use is projected to drop by 1.2 million gallons per week.
• Increase in worker productivity: Telecommuting has also been found to increase worker productivity by 20%-25%. When Cisco paid to have high-speed Internet installed in employees’ homes, the company traded wasted commute time for an extra hour of work each day. Other companies, such as AT&T and Merrill Lynch each saved $10,000 a year per employee through lower absenteeism alone.

A number of states are moving policies that recognize the benefits of telecommuting:

• In Virginia, lawmakers enacted legislation, which required that the head of each state agency must establish a telecommuting and alternative work policy under which eligible employees of such agency may telecommute.
• New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed an executive order creating the State of New Mexico Telework and Alternative Work Schedule Program. The executive order also called for technology improvements to increase productivity and support teleworking in State government.
• Connecticut, Vermont, and New York considered legislation, which if passed, would have required states to study, develop or implement guidelines authorizing telecommuting and work-at-home programs for state employees or study the benefits and other impacts of teleworking.

States considering legislating telecommuting and alternative work programs should ensure that such policies are structured to protect workers against violations of overtime or other labor laws.

Resources:
AeA - Telework in the Information Age: Building a More Flexible Workforce and a Cleaner Environment
Joseph P. Fuhr Jr. & Stephen B. Pociask - High-speed Internet Services-Economic & Environmental Benefits
Telework Coalition - Telework Benchmarking Study: Best Practices for Large-Scale Implementation in Public and Private Sector Organizations
Consumer Electronics Association - The Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Impact of Telecommuting and E-Commerce

Reduce energy usage with smart technology: Interactive control of home appliances and their interaction with the overall power grid, can produce significant energy savings. Electricity that flows in the home and workplace are currently device-focused, so more precise control and “time shifting” can significantly lower demands on the power grid. Consumers could save nearly $23 billion a year if they shifted just 7 percent of their usage during peak periods to less costly times, according to research by Carnegie Mellon University.

With new technology, appliances can be turned off during periods of high electrical demand and give customers real-time information on constantly changing electric rates. The goal is to use advanced, information-based technologies to reduce consumers utility bills, increase power grid efficiency, reliability, and flexibility, and reduce the rate at which additional electric utility infrastructure needs to be built. States are promoting use of smart technologies and innovative utility pricing mechanisms are currently being used by several utilities in small applications, mainly for testing purposes.

• Under Illinois Public Act 094-0977, each electric utility must allow residential retail customers in the electric utility’s service area to elect real-time pricing, based on a successful pilot program in Chicago.
• Other states, such as Vermont, while not requiring smart metering, are analyzing the benefits of such a program.
• The Maryland state legislature enacted HB 374 which dictates that the Public Service Commission shall evaluate whether “smart meters” and digital automation of the entire power supply system, commonly known as “smart grid,” would be cost–effective in reducing consumption and peak demand of electricity in Maryland.
• The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has teamed with utilities in the states[LM23] of Washington and Oregon to test new energy technologies designed to improve efficiency and reliability, while at the same time, increasing consumer choice and control. In the Olympic Peninsula, 200 homes are receiving real-time price signals over the Internet and have demand response thermostats and hot water heaters that can be programmed to respond automatically. The goal is to relieve congestion on the transmission and distribution grid during peak periods.
• The Hawaiian Electric Co., has been testing the technology since 2006, and expanded its pilot project in 2007 to approximately 6,000 more homes.

Source: http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/images/ami_diagram_june06.

Create a Smart Grid: State leaders are increasingly focused on creating a smart energy grid, which would integrate advanced functions into state’s electric grids in the hope of reducing carbon emissions. These advancements will be achieved by modernizing the electric grid with information-age technologies, such as microprocessors, communications, advanced computing, and information technologies. Such changes will allow us to reply more heavily on environmentally friendly energy sources, such as solar and wind power, help the system “self-heal” during power disturbances or physical attack, accommodate alternative storage options, and enable new services and markets.

Resources:
2002 Department of Energy report
Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center - Impacts of Responsive Load in PJM: Load Shifting and Real Time Pricing
Pacific Northwest GridWise Demonstration Projects
Utilities See 'Municipal Broadband Wireless Smart Grids' as Best Way to Combat Rising Fuel Costs
Smart Grid Provisions in H.R. 6, 110th Congress

Distance Learning

States should promote distance learning programs to increase educational opportunities for residents. With ubiquitous high-speed Internet access, students from any geographic location and income level can take advantage of otherwise unattainable educational and job training opportunities. One strong model was in Idaho where HB 543 was enacted in part to promote a statewide coordinated and funded high-bandwidth education network. Legislators hope, among other things, that the "Idaho Education Network" (IEN) can be a coordinated, statewide telecommunications distribution system for distance learning in each public school, including two-way interactive video, data, internet access and other telecommunications services . Further, the Idaho Digital Learning Academy (IDLA), a state sponsored, accredited, on-line virtual school created through the Idaho state legislature, is designed to increase educational opportunities and choices to all Idaho students regardless of learning ability, income, or geographic location. IDLA provides a high quality public school education, aligned with state achievement standards, utilizing the Internet and innovative educational methods of delivery.

Resources:
United States General Accounting Office, Distance Education - Growth in Distance Education Programs and Implications for Federal Education Policy
Idaho Digital Learning Academy