Chattanooga (TN) mayor: Gigabit speed Internet helped revive city

When Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke describes his city's economic renewal, he points to the city’s fiber network as a significant source of its new vibrancy. In the past three years, the city’s unemployment rate has dropped to 4.1 percent from 7.8 percent and the wage rate has also been climbing. Volkswagen’s presence has boosted the manufacturing sector and 10-gigabit speed Internet has fueled wage growth, Berke said. “We know that the wage rise is linked to internet jobs and particularly the technology sector,” Berke said.

A pioneer in municipal broadband, Chattanooga developed its fiber network in 2010 with $330 million, paid for with $105 million in federal funds and the rest from bonds. The high-speed access led to direct and indirect economic gains and has been profitable. “It changed our conceptions of who we are and what is possible,” Berke said. “Before we had never thought of ourselves as a technology city." Gigtank, a startup accelerator, emerged, and startup and tech events popped up as the city began taking advantage of its high-speed access. Berke described a Chattanooga company that developed during an entrepreneurial event and was eventually bought by OpenTable. Now, OpenTable has an office in the city’s Innovation District and it has doubled its local presence, part of the city’s downtown revitalization efforts. Downtown has doubled its residents and landlords often advertise gigabit speeds that are included in monthly rents. “It’s an explosion of growth in our technology sector,” he said. “That has sparked not only this (downtown) living but restaurants and bars and music and the quality of life that truly makes a city interesting, cool, hip, vibrant and energetic."