Local businesses take advantage of broadband

Doctors can send dozens of X-rays to nearby hospitals. Producers can transport videos the day they're due rather than ship them overnight. Large real estate companies can make hundreds -- or thousands -- of pictures available for would-be home buyers to peruse at their leisure.

These are just a few of the possibilities made possible by broadband.

Broadband is high-speed Internet access that is as much as 50 times faster than dial-up services. Those who use broadband have doubled in numbers in the last year and some local businesses who have a Web presence are preparing for the future.

Jay McGuire is the director of information systems at Southeast Missouri Hospital. Southeast has a T-1 broadband line, he said, that is used often.

It provides high-speed Internet service to 200 employees at the hospital, something that would be more difficult for a dial-up service to handle. They use broadband, McGuire said, to send data to their office on South Kingshighway.

The hospital's popular baby pictures that are posted online also pop up faster, he said.

Kevin Essner, network administrator for St. Francis Medical Center, said that much of the billing at that hospital is done online. He said their T-1 line also provides e-mail and allows some information to be transported back and forth between doctors' offices and the hospital.

Broadband has also affected the way local news is gathered and disseminated.

The Southeast Missourian's new media director, Gary Rust Jr., said it's another outlet to get news into readers hands more quickly.

"It's another outlet for content," Rust said. "It's just another means to get the message across."

Southeast Missourian places all of its stories online the same day and makes breaking news stories available as soon as they are reported.

Rust said in the future, newspaper Web sites are going to look much different with a greater emphasis on streaming and immediacy. Rust says city council meetings may be broadcast live from newspaper Web sites. Breaking news events can be taped and played with the click of a mouse.

"These sites, and ours too, will be more interactive," he said. "It's going to be about more content, more information. That's good for our readers."

Broadband is having an effect on television news, too.

"You're seeing more and more TV stations streaming news," said Paul Keener, director of marketing for KFVS-12. "Some stations are doing a lot of Web news. We use it sparingly. We put the planes hitting the towers up, but we don't do it much."

KFVS does put abbreviated news stories online after live reports.

Keener said that neither newspapers or television stations should worry about Internet news taking over.

"Will the Web stop people from watching television in their living room? No," he said. "People thought TV would wipe out radio, and that hasn't happened."