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Global Business: Chattanooga - the High Speed City

Chattanooga - the High Speed City

28/05/2016 GMT

BBC World Service - Global Business, Chattanooga - the High Speed City

Does speed matter? Peter Day visits America's first "gig city," Chattanooga, to find out.

Does speed matter? Peter Day visits Chattanooga, which became America's first "gig city" in 2010, to explore the impact super-fast internet has had on economic enterprise.

Chattanooga has been re-inventing itself for decades. In the late 1960s Walter Cronkite referred to the city as "the dirtiest in America." Since then heavy industry has declined and, to take its place, civic leaders have been on a mission to bring high-tech innovation and enterprise to Chattanooga. In 2010 the city became the first in America to enjoy gig speed internet following an investment of a couple of hundred million dollars from its publically-owned electricity company, EPB. What economic and psychological benefits have super-fast internet brought to this mid-sized city in Tennessee? Has the investment in speed paid off? 
Presenter Peter Day 
Producer Rosamund Jones

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