Lexington, KY - Since 2004, Kentucky has managed to see the percentage of its citizens with broadband access rocket from 60 percent to 95 percent. While that is no small feat in such a brief span of time, Rene True, executive director of Connect Kentucky, said resting on the achievements of yesterday in the world of Internet access will leave Kentucky far behind tomorrow.
"The bar keeps being raised. What was acceptable high-speed Internet access two years ago is no longer acceptable today. Kentucky still has work to do, not only to connect the last five percent of the state, which is the most remote and sparsely populated areas of the state, but also to make sure that some of the areas that are already covered are adequately covered with high-speed Internet access," said True who has spent some 18 months at the helm of the Connect Kentucky.
True's nonprofit organization aims to "accelerate the growth of technology in support of community and economic development, improved healthcare, enhanced education, and more effective government," according to its Web site.
"You'll be able to really leverage what's out there (with a high rate of broadband access) and the Kentucky citizens are already, and businesses are already, enjoying the access that they have. But it's a moving target and there is more work to be done," he said. However, national publications such as the Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune and Forbes have recognized Kentucky's progress as a model for the nation to consider emulating, with President Barack Obama's stimulus package setting aside hundreds of millions of dollars for the expansion of broadband.
Established in 2002 by non-profit Center for Information Technology Enterprises and former Gov. Paul Patton and expanded by Gov. Ernie Fletcher in 2004, Connect Kentucky has spawned similar programs to bridge the digital divide in Tennessee, Ohio, West Virginia and Minnesota as well as Connected Nation, which brings the groups together on a national basis.
The reason behind the push is simple: high-speed Internet equals commerce.
"It's actually crucial for businesses and for economic development growth," True said. Not only can current people employed in Lexington who may live outside of town be able to work from home with high-speed access, lowering carbon emissions and congestion, "but it also allows Lexington businesses to recruit staff and to draw from a larger labor market than maybe they would otherwise."
One such example of that business model is Virginia-based N.E.W. Customer Service Companies, Inc., which operates 11 incoming-call centers around the country. In 2006, the company began a work-at-home program and has since opened 12 training facilities to teach new employees to work in virtual call centers, including one based in Bowling Green.
Laura Lechner, a communications specialist for N.E.W., said Kentucky fit the mold needed to house the Bowling Green training center, where new employees come for a six-week orientation before setting up to work from their homes, helping consumers troubleshoot problems with electronics they've purchased through a bevy of retailers.
"We have found that the quality of the calls is equal to, if not above, the quality of our brick-and-mortar centers. So it's definitely working," said Lechner.
Each of the at-home training centers aim to bring on around 160 new operators a year, and when the company finds that they've exhausted the area's resource of operators, they close the training center but maintain all of their at-home employees, who make salaries comparable to their 250- to 600-employee call centers.
While an at-home employee can work from anywhere with broadband Internet access, a computer and headset for phone calls, N.E.W. won't set up shop just anywhere. "It's got to meet that IT infrastructure that we need," Lechner said.
"We actually have a rigorous process where we research each site. ... We have a consultant who goes out there and does some leg work to (evaluate) the infrastructure, the candidate pool, the competition in the area, all these factorsÖ ," Lechner said. "Our staff goes out, our HR teams, our IT teams, our facility teams, they go out to visit these sitesÖ meet with economic development corporations at each of these sites. Then we (decide) at that point whether it's a good match, whether we'd have a good turnout and recruitment pool."
Not only has it proven successful for N.E.W. as a corporation, but Lechner said the at-home employees and their geographic region benefit. "We realize that our employees like it, it is a great virtual environment for them, nice to offer in these new, small communities," she said adding that the overhead for the company is much less than their brick-and-mortar call centers.
On top of flexible work forces, Connect Kentucky's True said, the wide access of high-speed Internet allows for better medicine treatment in rural counties and education.
"One of the barriers that come up is that some homes do not have computers," True said. "So we came up with a program called Computers 4 Kids. We received foundation grants to allow us to go into disadvantaged areas to get computers in the hands of kids and families that don't have access."
True said he hopes to use stimulus money earmarked for broadband to update the state's maps of coverage to include the speed of access in given areas so as to better pinpoint where improvement is needed as broadband evolves.