New Rural Broadband Projects

Rural Community Broadband - can we become local and sustainable through new funding?

Now is the time for action. We are making a very important effort to expand rural broadband access through the new funding made available by USDA and the Department of Commerce. There will be many important new programs initiated over the next year to expand rural Internet access and establish a diversity of Organizations providing access which will create new competition and new alternatives to the limited Corporate Telecommunications companies which currently provide access. There is a real need for competition to drive forward the quality and quantity of broadband access for rural Americans.

How will it work this year as we see these new programs unfold?

There are two possible directions in the new funding.

The first direction will see many small rural broadband projects funded, creating diversity, regional sustainability and a serious new market challenge to the limited services provided by large Corporate Internet. This direction will create locally managed rural projects which will establish new resources, create new jobs in the communities being served and empower rural communities to begin taking a more direct, active role in the management and design of their broadband systems. Important here is the challenge which this presents to the USDA and Department of Commerce. These new projects will not create the theoretical large number of jobs and broad range of services proposed by large, much more expensive proposals, but they will establish smaller programs that will in all likelihood have much more rapid start up and a much higher level of local involvement increasing the positive impact on local communities.

The second direction is that we will see large Organizations receive the bulk of funding, creating the possibility of State wide and multi-State rural broadband access to begin taking shape. This will create, at least on paper, a larger number of jobs and larger numbers of individuals served, but at a much, much greater cost and with far less local involvement. Also, the jobs created by these larger projects will not be in the rural communities, instead they will establish large companies that hire where their operations centers are. The larger projects will not create local involvement but once again leave rural communities to wait for large ISP Networks to find their way to the small rural areas.

Based on my experience over the past 18 years of working with rural technology projects the large budget proposals will take far longer to get underway and once again leave rural community residents, small businesses and farms hoping they will be noticed.

I believe it is critically important that we have serious discussion and review of these two possible directions. The history of technology build out in the United States has shown that the very large projects are too often given preference, if for no other reason than because they provide, on paper, much larger statistics. But our experience has also shown that this generally leads to rural communities having little say in the design and application of the services. And the cost is tremendously higher, running into millions of dollars per project, whereas more local, small efforts create new local businesses with sustainable budgets and real local involvement.

So the main question comes up as to whether we are striving for sustainable, achievable rural broadband projects that are built up from the local level or are we going to see projects selected for the statistics?

I began working with rural Internet technology projects in 1991 through National Science Foundation funding and later through 5 USDA RUS distance learning and telemedicine grants. One of the most difficult issues during this time was the shift towards large, Corporate telecommunications services. A tendency that is all to common. Small, locally supported Internet service providers have been gradually forced out of the market because of the larger corporate systems, leaving rural America greatly underserved, if served at all. The new ARRA funding gives us a chance to turn that around and put seriously needed resources into the hands of local organizations. This will encourage new rural business models, give rural communities a real say in what is developed and take us back to the traditional model of American small business as the mainstay of our rural telecommunications systems.

If we take the small, local approach much less tax money per project will be required and far greater local accountability will be established to ensure the success of the projects.

Are we up to this change in approach to American Internet growth? Or will we return to the old model that so far has not worked, giving preference to large projects to give us better statistics on paper?

Through the small, local approach I have seen RAIN Network bring telemedicine and distance learning services to over 150 rural communities since 1997. I know from experience that this approach works and creates a level of local involvement that makes a real difference.

Those of us working at the local level should do all we can to encourage USDA and Department of Commerce to consider the value of small American businesses and not let the new rural broadband funding act as a tool to push small Internet Service Providers out of the market, leaving rural communities with little input and few choices as they endeavor to achieve equal access.