"Ugly as she was, Katrina may have given BellSouth a rare opportunity: the chance to turn one of the oldest cities in the USA into a showcase for 21st-century communications. Talk of how New Orleans could look some day may seem fanciful considering it may take years to make the city livable again.
Assuming New Orleans rises again, a city rebuilt from the ground up could boast the best voice, data and video communications infrastructure in the nation, says Bill Smith, BellSouth’s chief technology officer.
‘It’s hard under the circumstances to see this disaster in that light,’ Smith says. "But if you were bound and determined to find a silver lining to this catastrophe, one could say that there is the potential here to rebuild a state-of-the-art network in every respect.’
If BellSouth does decide to rebuild its network, it could be ‘a golden opportunity for the city,’ says Forrester Research analyst Lisa Pierce.
Wired with a state-of-the-art broadband network, she says, New Orleans could make vast improvements to health care, education and the local emergency communications network."
For additional information:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2005-09-11-katrina-communications-edge_x.htm