There
is a certain irony to the reality that while technical skills are
needed in rural and remote parts of the country to enable the infrastructure
for high-speed internet access, that same infrastructure is needed
to deliver the training to grow the technical skills!
Enabling
the infrastructure requires a wide range of technical skills. These
skills include the installation and maintenance of: the connections
to POP (point of presence) sites, the servers, routers, and switches
in the POP sites, the “last mile” access from the customer to the
POP site, and the customer premise equipment (CPE) that terminates
the service.
Often in areas underserved by high-speed internet connections there
are people who would embrace the opportunity to work in the so-called
“high tech” industry. But they do not have access to the knowledge
and skills required to perform the required tasks. Distance learning
can help facilitate the knowledge and skill transfer but to be really
effective requires high-speed links that can provide the real-time
delivery of audio and video content. Static images and text can
be provided over low-speed links but limits the effectiveness of
the training delivered.
Tools to deliver distance learning content over low-speed links
are available and can be somewhat effective. These tools need to
be viewed as a way of growing the skill sets of people in remote
and rural communities to the point where high-speed links can be
installed and maintained. Then these high-speed links can be used
to deliver real-time, highly interactive content to provide effective
training on a wide range of topics.
