The former director for cybersecurity policy at the National Security Council says open access fiber could improve U.S. connectivity and prevent the country from falling behind the rest of the world on Internet speed and access.

“Without a massive investment to build out the country’s fiber infrastructure and a new set of rules to govern its use, the United States risks being left behind,” writes Robert K. Knake, now a Whitney Shepardson Senior Fellow, in a recent report for the non-partisan Council on Foreign Affairs.

Knake’s thought-provoking piece calls for a rapid deployment of fiber optic Internet nationwide as part of the current infrastructure bill being debated in Washington.

If you have Fiber to the Building (FTTB) then your business has a direct fiber optical connection to the Internet backbone, and you are prepared to make use of the digital technologies and applications of today and tomorrow.

In settings that encompass more than one structure, such as an office park or a corporate, school or government campus, FTTB is just the first step as you must create building-to-building fiber connections.

Houston area residents understand first-hand how natural disasters can disrupt communication and connectivity to the outside world.

In 2017 when Hurricane Harvey brought catastrophic flooding that resulted in more than 100 deaths and an estimated $125 billion in damage, it also caused major disruptions in emergency call centers, cellular sites and other network assets affecting Internet and phone service across the region.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, connectivity was no longer a luxury for most, but a necessity to live and thrive in an increasingly digital world.

As emerging technologies and applications require more bandwidth and higher Internet speeds, the spotlight has been on bringing fiber to home and businesses across the country.

On the eve of the coronavirus crisis, more than one million commercial buildings and data centers had on-net access to fiber-based network services, and despite the economic obstacles the past year, those numbers keep expanding.

After a strong spring, the Metro Houston economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic has surged past the halfway mark, according to a major survey released by the Greater Houston Partnership on June 16, 2021.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is forecasting an above average 2021 Atlantic Hurricane season, with the possibility of an extremely active season, on the stormy heels of a record 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way we do business and education almost overnight with companies and schools shifting a year ago to remote work and learning.

As coronavirus vaccines roll out across the country, many businesses are considering a post-pandemic hybrid workforce approach with employees splitting time between the office and work from home.

Schools are also continuing their new embrace of technology as Houston-area school districts are announcing plans for the 2021-22 school year that feature remote learning and virtual campus options.

In a digital-first world the cost of network downtime for your business or organization is greater than ever. Gartner famously calculated in 2014 that the cost of network downtime to your business was an average of $5,600 per minute or $336K for one hour lost. 

Two years later the Ponemon Institute calculated downtime costs rising to $8,851 per minute. How bad can it get? Consider that one-third of enterprises say it costs them an average of $1 million to $5 million per hour of downtime.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of fiber lit buildings in the U.S. expanded in 2020 allowing many businesses to gain a competitive advantage by delivering services and utilizing applications at gigabit speeds.

The 2020 U.S. Fiber Lit Buildings LEADERBOARD compiled by the Vertical Systems Group showed that network providers continued their U.S. footprint expansion of on-net fiber lit commercial buildings even with the challenges of the coronavirus crisis.

Bloomberg News reported May 13 that the Colonial Pipeline Company paid nearly $5 million in ransom to hackers within hours of a May 7 ransomware attack that shut down a key component of the U.S.’s critical energy infrastructure for almost a week.

Bloomberg said, “The company paid the hefty ransom in difficult-to-trace cryptocurrency within hours after the attack, underscoring the immense pressure faced by the Georgia-based operator to get gasoline and jet fuel flowing again to major cities along the Eastern Seaboard.”