As a web architect and online strategist for Mopdog, my career is dedicated to using an Internet connection to transmit messaging. My work at Mopdog is tied to other companies and clients also having access to high-speed Internet and mobile connections to receive this messaging. The article, “Chattanooga’s Gig: How one city’s super-fast Internet is driving a tech boom,” written for The Guardian, discusses a closed-down department store on Market Street in Chattanooga that houses Lamp Post, a space for startups filled “with tech entrepreneurs taking advantage of the fastest Internet in the western hemisphere.” The high-speed Internet access movement is actually taking over all areas of Chattanooga. “The city is one of the only places on Earth with Internet as fast as 1 gigabit per second—about 50 times faster than the U.S. average.” Investment capital is moving in and pushing a new workforce to also relocate into the city.

Giant Internet service providers are playing a large role in maintaining and even controlling, how the Internet behaves.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will soon attempt to address some of the nation’s biggest Internet concerns. Until then, Chattanooga is taking matters into its own hands with a public broadband, fiber-optic network—called the Gig. But this initiation has led to a debate over what taxpayers’ money should fund, with some limitations or prohibitions placed by state legislators against such efforts in their states. But, “for Chattanoogans, the Internet is always on and always blazing fast,” Rushe said. It is also encouraging to see the city’s library is taking full advantage of the Gig, offering 3D printers, laser cutters and coding classes.

It was announced in February 2014 that Atlanta is on a list of cities to possible receive Google’s fiber optic Internet and television service, which is reported to operate at 100 times the speed delivered by most cable companies. Faster Internet is always welcome! Faster Internet helps people do more, faster and more efficiently. It’s great hearing that Chattanooga has used the increase of Internet speed to motivate young tech companies, who choose that city as a cost-effective destination to start a business. I’m very confident the same will happen in Atlanta with Google Fiber (as it did in Austin, Texas and Kansas City).

To continue this trend of building fatter and bigger Internet pipes, we need to also address a concern the U.S. is facing today—net neutrality. Giant Internet service providers are playing a large role in maintaining and even controlling, how the Internet behaves. These companies create artificial data-caps on your Internet connection. If these public, fiber-optic connections make your Internet faster, the data cap will just be reached faster. At the end of the day, fast and robust Internet speeds are great for business. But, if these super fast connections come with data caps, unless you pay a premium or go with on of the big service provides, than what good does it really do?