Unfinished Business
If We Build It, Will They Come?
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry earlier this week when I saw the headline, "Biden: Broadband for all by 2030."
It's a great goal. More than $40 billion is headed to un-served or under-served areas lacking access to download speeds of at least 25 megabits (Mbps) per second and upload speeds of 3 Mbps. (Read rural areas)
More than $1 billion will be sent to each of 19 states under the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program included in the 2021 infrastructure law. Each state is guaranteed $100 million. American Rescue Plan funds are fueling 35,000 projects already underway.
Biden said high speed internet is no longer a luxury, but an "absolute necessity. . . We're not going to leave anyone behind." These words have a familiar ring. But maybe President Biden finally will be the one to make it happen.
More than 7% of the U.S. falls into the underserved category, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Under program rules, states must prioritize connecting predominantly unserved areas as well as schools, libraries, and other community hubs prior to awarding underserved areas.
But the FCC's original maps overestimated the reach of broadband in rural areas and incorrectly defined critical words like "access" and "high-speed." Data also was self-reported by internet service providers (ISPs), overstating their service coverage. ISPs also used the inaccurate maps to stifle new competition.
The FCC released new maps in May, revealing the net addition of one million locations, updated data from internet service providers, and input stemming from more than three million public challenges to its original maps. The data is much more granular, compared to its previous census block data (if one household in the block had broadband, it was assumed the rest did).
States can begin to apply by July 1, and they have until the end of 2023 to submit proposals outlining how they'd use BEAD funds. States will oversee awarding grants to telecommunications companies, electric cooperatives, and other providers to expand internet infrastructure. ISPs will not be allowed to decide where to expand their networks.
If You Build It, They Will Come!
It's been a long and winding rural road to the Information Superhighway. In a 2002 article for Successful Farming, I highlighted the new Farm Bill's $100 million in low interest loans and loan guarantees over six years to encourage providers to invest in rural broadband. "Broadband access in rural areas has lagged because the lack of potential subscribers is a disincentive to the high cost of laying cable or building satellite in rural areas," I wrote.
I featured the stories of farmers and rural leaders in states like Montana, where an all-volunteer telecom team installed transmitting antennas on two water towers to bring broadband to three counties; each of the six antennas had a 60-mile radius. They used a pair of binoculars and GPS to determine a line of sight. In 2004, a farmer near Williamsport, Indiana, bought an abandoned 320-foot-high AT & T microwave tower; its eventual customers included 50 farmers, a seed corn company, grain elevator, retail businesses and rural acreage owners. The hospital, EMS, and the school leased space on the tower for a radio repeater.
By 2004, more tractors were being equipped with laptops. At that time if a farmer used GPS to apply fertilizer in the field, he'd have to take the laptop out of the tractor and plug it into a home computer, or take a memory card out and transfer the data to find out if more lime was needed. Some farmers mounted an antenna on their grain bin legs, and it served as a repeater for their home computer. Wireless internet would allow them to upload their GPS and field monitor data from tractor laptops onto their home computer in real time. By 2007, some precision ag software began to require high speed internet.
Broadband also was offering the potential to transform the face of rural medical care. In 2007, I featured a Sioux Center, Iowa, hospital, the first rural hospital in the Midwest to offer an Electronic intensive Care Unit (eICU). Video cameras and computer monitors connected to Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center in Sioux Falls. First Responders also were eager to equip fire trucks, ambulances, and cruisers with broadband.
However, the Age of the Superhighway remained beyond reach for many. In 2008, I wrote: "But the Rural Broadband Initiative, a highly touted USDA program to help provide high speed internet to rural America has had little impact on companies doing business in rural America. Investigations have shown that since 2001, only 40% of the $1.2 billion funded to date has benefited communities without broadband service at the time of the loan. More than one half of the money went to urban areas, including a loan to a Houston provider that wires affluent housing subdivisions."
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, included $7 billion in grants and loans for the "middle mile" (including schools and hospitals) as well as "last mile" (homes and businesses). I interviewed Kansas farmers, Bruce and Cynthia Wegener, who needed broadband for their business, Wegener Quarter Horses. Only 60% of rural households had broadband in 2010, according to the US Dept. of Commerce.
A Universal Service Fund (USF) set up in 1997 to support the higher cost of rural phone service evolved to help fund broadband. But in some areas the FCC discovered that five to six companies were overlapping their services. By 2012, the FCC began shifting funds from the USF to a new Connect America Fund to spur communication providers to reach underserved rural areas with broadband.
If You Build It, They Will Come!
Rural America eventually received electricity -- thanks to the 1936 creation of Rural Electric Cooperatives (RECs). The move to broadband in the information age is comparable. Like the early national companies Verizon, Comcast, Charter, and AT& T aren't inclined to serve sparsely populated rural areas.
Broadband is more than a speed ramp to enjoy Netflix or on-line gaming. It's fundamental to the employment, education, and health of all Americans. Today, many farmers need to monitor farm equipment at remote locations (if a grain dryer quits, it causes spoiled grain); irrigation equipment in fields can be operated remotely, and farmers can bid virtually at livestock or land auctions.
It also can be a matter of life and death. In a story reported by The Daily Yonder, the record-breaking four-day flooding in eastern Kentucky in July 2022 was exacerbated by limited cellular and internet access. A total of 43 people died, and thousands of homes were destroyed. A follow-up survey of households documented this critical issue. Last-mile infrastructure is the greatest challenge, and it's likely to require four more years to expand the region's broadband infrastructure.
In some remote areas, it may come down to do-it-your-self efforts. In 2016, the voters of Islesboro, Maine, approved a $3.8 million bond to build a fiber optic at speeds of 1 gigabit per second. By 2018, Islesboro Municipal Broadband had been installed for home and business subscribers.
If You Build It, They Will Come!
Some states (New Jersey) have the fastest and most reliable broadband anywhere in the world. Generally, large, rural states have less coverage and slower speeds than small, high-populated states. State wealth also is a factor. Although the United States gave birth to the Internet, it ranks 23 out of 57 countries in terms of broadband subscribers.
So, what about Iowa? Iowa has the second slowest internet speeds in the U.S. (average download of 74.3 Mbps per second, according to BroadbandNow.com). Iowa ranks 45th in the U.S. for internet connectivity, and monthly internet prices are higher here, too.
The Pandemic (working and learning at home) exposed the inadequacy of Iowa's broadband. The Governor's goal is to have universal broadband statewide by 2025, and Iowa is in its sixth consecutive year of allocating public funds to expand broadband.
Iowa will receive $415,331,313 under the BEAD program. Gov. Reynolds announced about $150 million in funding on June 19. Watch for Iowa members of Congress who voted against the Infrastructure Act to line up to take credit for expanded broadband funding.
We're fortunate on our farm in west central Iowa because Webster Calhoun Telephone Cooperative seized the fiber initiative early on, and today it's a Certified Gig--Capable provider. (Cooperatives don't have to put private investors first). In 1986, I was using a hulking IBM computer with a dial-up connection twice weekly to send my stories to Des Moines.
But the digital divide is real. Just compare the returns to economic growth for areas with good broadband and those without. Is it any wonder that a large swath of the U.S. population feels left behind? Rural Iowa has lost population every decade since 1910, while metro Iowa continues to pull away our youth with job opportunities and factors like broadband. Broadband offers the potential to revitalize rural areas and agriculture.
In fact, in a recent speech, Biden cited a message he received from an Iowa woman, who praised his initiative: "It's the best thing that's happened in rural America since the Rural Electrification Act," she wrote.
If we build it, will they come? I hope I live long enough to find out!
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How frustrating, Josiah! Glad you’re finally getting connected to fiber.
The third successive owner of our local phone service installed a DSL box at the end of a 13 mile wire which did not work, so it was 15 miles into the hospital at Mt. Ayr with computer in hand anytime internet was needed. Eventually bit the bullet, installed satellite dishes and even purchased landline phone service from the satellite provider (landline wire had 60 cycle hum). Not perfect (nearly one-second latency on voice communications; stormy weather transiently disrupts the whole thing) but serviceable and, of course, not cheap.
Physical fiber to every site is a modern imperative but as our experienced collaborator points out with free government money the proof will always be in the execution. Good luck, but we can hope.