A glowing report issued last week by The Center for an Urban Future said the tech industry is growing faster in NY than anywhere else in the nation. Venture capital investment is down 10 percent in the rest of the country, but it’s up by 32 percent in the city. There’s only one problem: broadband access is way below par.
Entrepreneurs quoted in the study said a city vying to be the nation’s leading technology hub should have better infrastructure. Startups can have either Verizon FIOS or Time Warner Cable, but not both, leaving a critical hole in their backup. Others said their Internet goes down regularly. While NY’s Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications (DoITT) has established broadband in parks, large swaths of cheaper, industrial sections of the city have no broadband access at all.
Fledgling tech companies wanting to set up shop in these locations would have to pay a telecom company around $80,000 to dig up the streets and lay cable.
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[...] Poor Broadband Could Hinder NY Tech Growth [...]