By Tom Wheeler, Brookings, May 19, 2021
Jackson County, Kentucky, has one stop light in its 347 square miles—but also high-speed fiber optic internet service to rival any big city. In the coal country of eastern Kentucky, the 800-person town of McKee is the hub of a one-thousand-mile fiber-to-the-home network covering two of the nation’s poorest and most remote counties. The fiber link was built almost entirely with dollars from the federal government. It is a powerful example of the infrastructure of the 21st century and the importance of extending those connections to all Americans.
President Biden’s infrastructure plan includes $80 billion to connect unserved areas to high-speed broadband networks. The plan has been christened the American Jobs Plan because of the jobs that will be created to build the new infrastructure. The Kentucky experience illustrates the power of fiber connections to create jobs after the construction crews have gone home. When the fiber came to the areas around McKee, employment increased despite the collapse of the area’s main employer, the coal industry.
Next door to Jackson County and also on the fiber network, Owsley County is one of the nation’s poorest counties. Yet, between 2014, when the fiber network was completed, and 2019, unemployment in the county fell five percentage points, more than any other county in the state. Today, in a classic “if you build it, they will come,” residents of Owsley and Jackson counties work online, mostly from home, for companies as diverse as Amazon, Hilton, and Apple. They have professional, high paying jobs as customer service agents, tech support and health insurance support. The network, with only 7,000 customers, has created 1,100 jobs generating $24 million in new annual payrolls through the end of 2020, according to Keith Gabbard, its general manager.
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