Baltimore has a lot of pressing infrastructure issues: leaky sewers, decaying bridges, lots of other transportation needs. And there’s another important item to add to the list: digital infrastructure, the cables and wires that connect city residents to the Internet. If you look at a map of super high-speed Internet availability in central Maryland, you’ll see Baltimore surrounded by opportunities to connect to the latest fiber-optics networks. But in the city, itself, it’s a different story – there is no residential fiber-optic service.
A new draft report from a task force on moving the city forward into a digital future calls for expanded broadband access throughout the city. I spoke about it with the co-chair of that task force, Deputy Mayor Colin Tarbert. With Baltimore still recovering from the unrest in April – I asked him how technological investment fits into the city’s long-term plan to reinvigorate itself. We also spoke with Andrew Coy, executive director of the Digital Harbor Foundation about how tech investment can transform our schools.
