Ten Years of Fiber Optic and Smart Grid Infrastructure in Hamilton County, Tennessee

This study computes the realized economic value of fiber optic infrastructure in Hamilton County and the city of Chattanooga, over a (roughly) 10-year period from 2011 to March 2020. Our estimates show that the economic value of the fiber optic infrastructure, i.e. high-speed broadband and the smart grid, minimally exceeds $2.69 billion and 9,516 jobs over the study period. The value exceeds the costs of the project by over $2.20 billion, or by a factor of 4.42. Roughly 40 percent of all jobs created in Hamilton County in the study period can be attributed to the fiber infrastructure. As seen in Table 1, approximately 52 percent of the value of the infrastructure is manifested in local economic development, i.e. over $1.4 billion in new investments, startup funding, real estate development and payments-in-lieu of taxes (PILOT). The smart grid has generated 28 percent of the estimated value in just over eight years from 2012. The remainder of calculated value stems from business efficiencies, household and community effects. Each county resident is estimated to have benefited by about $646 per year due to the incremental value generated by the fiber optic infrastructure.