Challenged rural counties need high-speed Internet

[Commentary] VisionPerry — in collaboration with cTechnology Inc. of Nashville, South Central Tennessee Workforce Alliance, the town of Linden, the city of Lobelville and Perry County government — launched a pilot training program to develop a “Digital Factory” in Perry County, using high-speed Internet to overcome the disadvantages of our geographic location.

VisionPerry serves as both a training and work-center facility outfitted with broadband connections. It has developed a skilled, certified workforce for supporting nationally based companies. A Nashville-based company has located a satellite facility in Linden, and the program has spread into surrounding counties, including Gibson County. Broadband access is clearly the key to success, but only 37.5 percent of Tennesseans with Internet in the home have access to wireless broadband. We urge our congressional delegation to contact the Federal Communications Commission and tell it to support creative engineering solutions to expand wireless broadband, because it means jobs in Perry County and in Tennessee. It’s the American way.

[Dumont is executive director of VisionPerry]