TN’s expanding Gig City capacity bodes well for entrepreneurs

• EPB just announced access to speeds of 10GB, making Chattanooga the first 10-gigabit city in the world.
• Jackson upgraded its fiber-to-the-home, or FTTH, network, to gigabit-level speeds and was named a “Gig City” this past summer.
• The Tullahoma Utilities Board has created LighTUBe, its own FTTH network.

Being an entrepreneur in Tennessee isn’t just a good gig. It’s also about having a good gig — or plenty of them.

They know that in Chattanooga, where the Gig Network provides one-gigabit-per-second service to all residents and businesses. Launch Tennessee’s local accelerator knows it, too, which is why CO.LAB’sGIGTANK accelerator continues to produce exciting new businesses with ultra-high bandwidth applications.

And that’s going to explode soon, because EPB, Chattanooga’s publicly owned electric power system, has done nothing but innovate since setting up the Gig in 2010. EPB just announced access to speeds of 10GB, making Chattanooga the first 10-gigabit city in the world.

In the world. Not the state, or the country, but the world. Just to get a sense of that, Chattanoogans will have Internet speed 2000 times faster than the national average. And soon they won’t be alone:

Public utilities and municipalities elsewhere in the Volunteer State have seen what the Gig can do for a city, in terms of everything from entrepreneurial opportunities to classroom instruction. They want a piece of the action:

• In Jackson, the Jackson Energy Authority upgraded its fiber-to-the-home, or FTTH, network, to gigabit-level speeds and was named a “Gig City” this past summer.
• The Tullahoma Utilities Board has created LighTUBe, its own FTTH network.
• Other Gig Cities in Tennessee with fiber-optic programs in various stages of deployment include Clarksville, Pulaski, Bristol and Morristown.
• They’ll soon be joined by Nashville, where Google Fiber, ATT and Comcast are busy setting up their individual offerings to provide gig access to the people of the city. That competition is only a good thing for residents.

What this means for Tennessee is that soon we’ll have more cities and people with access to gig speeds than anywhere else in the country. That’s fantastic news for tech entrepreneurs in particular, but really for anyone with a creative business vision who wants to tap into Launch Tennessee’s accelerator network of cohorts and more. Smart and talented people go where the best tools are available.

As excited as we are about all the gig news for Tennesseans, we’re equally thrilled to see this technology taking root across the Southeast. In addition to Nashville, Google Fiber is putting down fiberoptic cables in Atlanta and in Raleigh/Durham and Charlotte, N.C., which means we’re on our way to becoming the most connected region in the country.

This is right on message with our annual 36|86 conference, where we celebrate the region’s innovation and entrepreneurship.  36|86 kicks off with road shows around the region, where we tap into the talent that’s accessing gig speeds and much more. Then we bring them to Nashville and Tennessee, which are leading the way for innovation in the Southeast.

For entrepreneurs, as well as the venture capital providers who fund them, 36|86 and its lead-in events are a one-two punch. But just as dramatic is what’s happening with the Gig Cities all across Tennessee, because it shows just what a hub the state, and the region, have become for world-class entrepreneurship and innovation.

Charlie Brock is CEO of Launch Tennessee (www.launchtn.org), a public-private partnership focused on supporting the development of high-growth companies in Tennessee with the ultimate goal of making Tennessee the No. 1 state in the Southeast for entrepreneurs to start and grow a company.