Charlotte Hearts Gigabit co-founder Candice Langston reported that the City of Charlotte convened a group of representatives to discuss the “digital divide” in Charlotte. Attending organizations included the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library, the Knight Foundation, CMS, UNC Charlotte, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership and Queens University.
With the impending announcement from Google about the potential roll-out of Google Fiber in Charlotte, and with internet providers such as AT&T and Time Warner currently considering or already offering similar services, the challenge and opportunity to connect more of our citizens to the internet, and leverage the enormous advantage of gigabit connectivity, is emerging.
The City of Charlotte is actively bringing more people with the knowledge of how to engage and activate our resources are coming to the table with ideas and solutions about how to close this divide.
The City is also taking a contingency to Kansas City to attend the Gigabit City Summit in January to learn more about these opportunities and challenges, and to network with other communities that have gigabit services or are in a similar position to Charlotte and are nearing a decision from Google on Google Fiber. Charlotte Hearts Gigabit co-founds Terry Cox and Alan Fitzpatrick also plan to attend.
City officials expect Google to make an announcement before the end of 2014 on the roll out of Google Fiber.
Candice is on the City’s cabinet to study the digital divide issue and reported that there will be monthly meetings, the next one will take place on or around Jan 11th.