A helicopter landed on the rooftop of a local building in Dahlonega yesterday. The governor of Georgia had arrived to hand deliver a check to NGCSU. $2.5M, as a grant to increase North Georgia’s broadband initiative.

The development of this infrastructure is one of the most important projects in North Georgia, especially for a guy like me who spends a good portion of his time soaking up random (and often useless) information on the internet. Ill admit Im geeking about pining my LA server in less than one second!

Lets look at where we are in the tech universe.

Broadband:

Right now you have a choice for broadband in Dahlonega, the restricted and expensive DSL, or the more expensive, and sometimes intermittent Satellite companies. I am looking forward to seeing that change, hopefully even seeing a startup ISP in the area.

Wireless

The ATT tower that gives Dahlonega, and most of North Georgia its cellular service runs on the very antiquated GSM technology. When are they planning to update it? Dont hold your breath. Hopefully they’ll just skip over 3G to the next generation of wireless.

Verizon, on the other hand boasts 3G in Dahlonega, but I dont know anyone using their service, so I can only imagine it isn’t that great.

Wrapping it up Im very excited to see the new highway come into town.