County Executive Marc Elrich
- On Montgomery County
“Fiber networks are fundamental to Montgomery County’s economic future. We need to move our economy at the speed of our ideas.”
- On Next Century Cities
“Local communities are the lifeblood of innovation. Next Century Cities provides us with a national connection to the best broadband ideas and innovation happening around the country in communities like ours that are dedicated to creating superior broadband ecosystems.”
- What Montgomery County is working on
Our flagship project is called Ultra Montgomery, an umbrella program that will include many of the County’s current and future programs. At its core is FiberNet, our 600-mile fiber-optic communications network, which connects 450 County institutions and has additional capabilities that we will leverage to support advanced research and next-generation Internet innovation. To enhance our broadband connectivity, we are considering a range of options, including requirements to improve building access for broadband networks and policies to add conduit for fiber installation in road and transit projects. To enhance our economic development, we are working to identify and nurture forward-looking businesses and have opened the County’s Thingstitute, a new Internet of Things lab to encourage and demonstrate innovation. By lowering infrastructure deployment costs and creating public-private partnerships, Ultra Montgomery will expand knowledge-based jobs and businesses within the County. We want to continue to connect Montgomery County to other gigabit economies to share in a national gigabit community of ideas and innovation.
