Connecting in North Georgia

SNG helps businesses understand broadband benefits, drive uptake.

by Doug Adams
Over the past month, SNG has been helping ARRA pioneer North Georgia Network (NGN) kickoff the next step in their broadband journey – driving utilization.

They see this as, of course, an opportunity to be a sustainable project. But more importantly to Bruce Abraham and his new not-for-profit Connect North Georgia, it is an opportunity to help North Georgia grow through the meaningful use of broadband and its advanced applications.

SNG is helping with this initiative by going to businesses and telling them what they need to be doing online. Just providing “bigger, better, faster Internet” does not have tangible meaning to most businesses, especially small businesses. SNG is able to bring meaning to the region’s businesses as to what faster broadband means for them

Specifically, SNG reached ut to all small businesses (under 50 employees) in the region and offered a broadband assessment, a self-assessment centered on the applications (e-Solutions) being currently utilized, the ones that aren’t, and the state of the business.

We then sent these same businesses a report with recommendations for e-solutions to adopt, and the ROI accompanying each. All of this is fact-based, grounded in our Digital Economy Analytics Platform (DEAP) – a research database that over 11,000 business’ broadband usage and accompanying results – which inevitably provides Georgia businesses with the ability to compare their usage with like-sized organizations in the same industry.

“With SNG’s help, we’re working towards making the benefits and potential of the Internet ‘real’ to local businesses,” explains Brice Abraham. “We’ve found that unless you make better broadband meaningful to businesses, they’ll stick with the status quo.”