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Broadband Brings Fab Lab, Second Home Business

Geralt-Pixabay

The Executive Director of Grow North Regional Economic Development Corporation says the advent of faster Internet service will make a potentially-game changing effort possible.

In August, the Three Lakes Schools will likely be using a special program known as a Fab Lab. The lab is a teaching curriculum where students learn to manufacture things using a computer, laser, manufacturing machine and specific materials. Promoters say this will revolutionize manufacturing, enabling people of lesser means to begin a manufacturing process in their own home. The curriculum is designed to train high school students to have the skill by the time they graduate.

Don Sidlowski from Grow North says the effort to bring in high-speed internet will open up a new economic engine like Fab Labs. But Sidlowski says another factor are the many people who come north to vacation. He says those people can now spend more time here because the faster Internet will enable them to spend some time working if they choose...

"....with the ability to log into work, or even spend the entire summer(here),working from that second home, that the annual economic impact in Oneida county was nearly $6 million per year. That's not just this year, that's every year. $6 million because the average second home owner would stay 37 more days...."

WXPR will broadcast an hour-long program on broadband, the Three Lakes Fab Lab and the potential it all holds  Sunday, April 27  at noon.

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