Countless economic and educational opportunities await Virgin Islanders as the VI Next Generation Network fiber optics installation nears completion.
This was the message delivered by Peter Schultz, the secretary of the board for the Virgin Island’s Next Generations Network (viNGN) and co-inventor of the fiber optics now used worldwide for telecommunications.
“High speed is the key with fiber optics,” said Schultz. “The faster we can connect our citizens, the faster our economy can grow.”
Schultz explained to a crowd of over 40 Ad Club members and guests the viNGN’s ongoing plans to bring a four-fiber cable and interface to 324 community anchor institutions located throughout the territory. That breaks down to 82 schools, 131 government offices, 37 community centers, 19 health care providers, seven libraries, four colleges and two public broadcasting stations.
And that’s not all. “The opportunities that await the residents of the Virgin Islands are endless,” said Schultz. “With the increased bandwidth speed there is no reason why brokerage houses, credit card centers and international customer service centers can’t be located right here.”
There will be no cost to the various anchor institutions, and each unit is capable of delivering at least one gigabit of bandwidth through an Internet service provider of their choosing. In data communications, a gigabit is one billion bits, the basic units of information in computing.
Schultz explained that originally Internet cable consisted of two twisted copper wires that were fed into each separate home or office. It took five minutes to download a photo and 15 days to download a DVD movie. Fiber optics, weighing just one ounce per mile of protected cable, will reduce that time to 0.1 seconds and one minute respectively.
There are plans to operate 30 public community centers in the territory that will provide free Internet access as well as advanced training courses for residents interested in pursuing a career in information technology
High speed Internet will benefit residents in the pursuit of higher education in that there are currently 250 open online courses available throughout the United States with more than 2 million people having registered for classes so far in 2013.
Health services will be greatly affected through the use of telemedicine diagnostics, remote monitoring and consultations. Business operations worldwide reap the benefits of increased bandwidth through telecommuting, outsourcing and backup data storage services. According to Schultz, there are 3 million full-time employees nationwide who work from home full time.
Established in 2010, viNGN is funded primarily from a grant by the National Telecommunications Information Administration as part of a federal program to improve the broadband capacity in the territory. The $117 million broadband expansion project is funded by four federal stimulus grants plus a local match of $32 million. Only four grants were awarded, the Virgin Islands received all four.
According to Schultz, all fiber optic cable installation and construction must be completed by July 31, 2013 to stay within federal grant guidelines. After that the difference will come out of the viNGN account established to address just such a scenario. The complete operation will be phased in as the various sections are completed.
