Rural Broadband: The Cost of Exclusion
The Center for Rural Strategies contributed the following remarks to a recent public hearing on Digital Inclusion by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The event was part of a series of hearings the FCC is holding around the country as they prepare a national broadband plan to present to Congress in February 2010.
Comments of Tim Marema - Vice President, Center for Rural Strategies
To the Federal Communications Commission, Field Hearing on Digital Inclusion
Memphis, Tennessee - December 14, 2009
Thank you for including rural perspectives in this hearing about digital inclusion. The Rural Broadband Policy Group was instrumental in helping me prepare my remarks. You can learn more about their work at http://www.ruralstrategies.org/rural-broadband-policy-group and http://www.ruralstrategies.org/broadband.
Rural America represents about 20 percent of the population, 80 percent of land. As we look toward feeding and powering our nation sustainably, rural residents have to be at the table and on the job. Rural America is diverse economically and socially. About one quarter of all rural Americans live in counties where people of color represent the majority population. By 2042, half of all rural Americans will live in such counties.
Regrettably, rural America is falling further behind, with higher poverty rates, higher rates of chronic illness, drug abuse, and premature death. You will hear much about the two Americas this evening. The one I’m talking about starts at the county line. It has much in common with other distressed areas of the United States.
Broadband access is a key part of bringing rural people and resources into the American picture of prosperity. Everyone in this room knows why. Broadband shrinks distances and overcomes barriers of geography.
There are many examples of success. Some are pretty simple. In California, an ex-forest service geologist built an on-line business buying and selling rocks to collectors around the world.
In Lakewood, Minnesota, a medical clinic monitors patients remotely via broadband connections, lowering healthcare costs while providing patients with better service.
One hundred miles to the west, Dale’s Auto Body uses broadband to process insurance estimates and train workers.
But unfortunately, there are far too many examples of rural communities where the lack of broadband access is widening the gap between metro and rural.
In Central Appalachia in southwest Virginia and eastern Kentucky, mountain terrain makes travel difficult. It’s just the sort of place where broadband would be most useful. On the north side of Pine Mountain in Harlan County, Kentucky residents are stuck with dial up. That won’t work for students at the local community college. They can’t get access the school’s blackboard system or submit assignments or exams. One instructor spent 14 hours entering grades, which should have taken a half hour on a high speed connection.
The Hyampom Community Volunteer Fire Department in Northern California tried to apply for a state grant to protect the community from wildfire. The application had to be done online. Their dialup connection kicked them off the government server repeatedly. As a consequence, they missed the deadline, and any chance of added fire protection, by two minutes.
These are not folks trying to do cutting-edge, high-tech activities. This is basic stuff that we can take for granted with a high speed connection. As the broadband network moves ahead, those of us left behind are going to pay a higher and higher cost for exclusion.
There is no single answer, but there are a set of principles that can help shape our response to create more access and opportunity for everyone, rural included.
First, cost: Available is not synonymous with affordable. We have to get online costs at an affordable rate or provide community access alternatives. According to research we’ve published in our online news journal, the Daily Yonder, (www.dailyyonder.com) the federal government made affordability a hallmark of rural electrification in the 1930s. Where commercial utilities gave up, government loans and grants made electricity affordable to everyone. We need the same approach with broadband.
Innovation. Rural America is diverse. Our broadband response needs to be diverse. There’s no one size fits all solution.
We need to move quickly into unlicensed, high-powered use of VHF spectrum for broadband service. Rural America has plenty of open, quality spectrum. We should put it to use.
Local ownership: Local ownership encourages broadband systems to respond to local needs and provides opportunities for local people to be producers and innovators, not just consumers.
Community hubs, or centers where residents can go online if they lack service at home.
We should reform the Universal Service Fund to include support for broadband. But we have to ensure that it truly meets the needs of people overlooked by the logic of the marketplace.
Net neutrality: Rural areas have less access to all forms of media, not just broadband. It is extremely important that broadband operate under principles of open and unfiltered access to information. Democratic action, commercial innovation, and basic liberty demand no less.
Thank you,
Tim Marema, Vice President
Center for Rural Strategies
www.ruralstrategies.org and www.dailyyonder.com
