PUBLICATIONS Archived Press Releases

Crain’s Special Report Part II: How Chicago’s CTO sees upgrading the city’s digital infrastructure

September 18, 2012 John Tolva, the city’s chief technology officer, is leading Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s effort to upgrade Chicago’s digital infrastructure as an economic development tool. He sat down with Crain’s to talk about the plan. Here’s an edited transcript of the conversation. Why is broadband important to economic development? We have some of the slowest speeds as a country in the developed world and some of the highest rates. It costs so much to put fiber in the ground, people don’t overbuild, so you get effective monopolies and duopolies. We don’t love that. We see that particular model as being an inhibitor to what the mayor calls a rebranding of the city as a locus for - regionally if not nationally - for the digital economy. We’re very proud of our 19th- and 20th-century industrial legacy. But we’re victims of our own success in some ways: That’s what people think about in terms of Chicago’s strengths, logistics, retail and agribusiness, and things like that. The way we think about broadband is as much an infrastructural thing as a piece of marketing, saying to the world: “We’re open for business.” How do you do that? One thing is talking to all of our partners in this: Comcast, AT&T, RCN… You might be surprised how much of Internet access downtown is provided by microwave: building-top to building-top the condos. Getting all the parties together and laying out these goals, which are providing near-gigabit speeds in certain areas of the city, and I’m talking primarily commercial, not residential. To read the entire story, see: www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20120918/NEWS08/120919849/how-chicagos-cto-sees-upgrading-the-citys-digital-infrastructure