Need For Speed

Like traditional infrastructure, broadband Internet connectivity is key to our state's economic future, so let's invest in a superfast system that everyone in Maryland can access

This legislative session, two Montgomery County Democrats, Dels. Herman L. Taylor II and Thomas Hucker, have heeded their constituents' cries. Their bills provide funding to map Maryland's existing access to high-speed Internet - the necessary first step to building out broadband infrastructure. A few other states, including Kentucky and California, have taken similar steps.

There are many ways that ubiquitous broadband could be achieved, from government projects to private efforts involving subsidies. Many in the Maryland legislature are beginning to recognize not only that broadband provides an economic stimulus but also that broadband build-out would create significant cost savings in the areas of health care, commuting and construction.

Take just one example, telemedicine, which permits electronic monitoring of patients and allows doctors and hospitals to share data and images easily and instantaneously, provide treatments to patients in remote locations, and order supplies and prescriptions in simpler and cheaper ways. A recent State University of New York study found that patients using telemedicine to manage congestive heart failure experienced a reduction in overall health care costs of 41 percent. Reduced physician office visits alone saved more than $115 million annually.

Telecommuting is estimated to have the ability to create more than $20 billion of savings annually across the economy. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, a 10 percent rise in the number of workers telecommuting once a week would lead fuel use to drop by 1.2 million gallons per week. Telecommuting has also been found to increase worker productivity by 20 percent to 25 percent. When Cisco paid for broadband in employees' homes, it traded wasted commute time for an extra hour of work each day.

Broadband also increases citizens' quality of life. With ubiquitous high-speed Internet access, students from any location and income level in Maryland could take advantage of otherwise unattainable educational opportunities; more people could participate in e-commerce; and homeland security and general safety could be improved by extending connectivity to rural areas.

Maryland has two choices: It can live in the president's alternative reality, or it can ensure a better future for its citizens and set a strong example for other states to follow.

Julie Schwartz is a broadband, media reform and economic policy specialist with the Progressive States Network, a nonprofit policy group. Her e-mail is [e-mail].