Cowboy Up for Better Technology:  Internet Innovation Means Cattlemen Connect

By Jess Peterson, Guest IIA Blogger

Based on my observations there are a lot of similarities between the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Communications Commission when it comes to matters affecting rural America. The most prominent of these similarities is the overwhelming use of heavy-handed regulation by both the FDA and FCC when a light touch is really what would best serve the industries they regulate. Quite simply, heavy-handed regulation scares potential investors, especially those looking to invest or enter into public-private partnerships in rural Communities.

In the case of FCC regulation of broadband, the Commission is failing to take into account the need for regulatory certainty that investors in rural broadband infrastructure require. With all due respect to the FCC: heavy-handed regulation makes investors and business owners nervous. Conversely, conservative regulation creates the certainty required for investors to commit capital to multiyear broadband infrastructure projects serving communities in rural America. It should come as no surprise that building out broadband infrastructure in rural communities is more time and capital-intensive. This is why a period of regulatory stability would go a long way toward providers deploying broadband connections in rural areas.

Let me be clear: the fact of the matter is that investment and public-private partnerships involving broadband providers are critical to providing ranchers and farmers with the same business opportunities that businesses in urban communities enjoy. This type of investment will not occur if the FCC continues to advocate for measures that would leave ranchers to continue to live as second-class digital citizens.

We all want to be connected in Rural America:  to run our businesses, to improve quality of life and reap the benefits of resources such as education and health care online. And the FCC has a critical role when it comes to bringing broadband to cattlemen… and that’s to implement the National Broadband Plan.

— Jess Peterson is Executive Vice President for the United States Cattlemen’s Association and a 5th generation rancher. 

More Grants on the Way

By Brad

Government funds for critical broadband deployment in unserved areas continue to roll out, with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announcing that 126 new projects in 38 states will receive funding. Total price tag for this round: $1.2 billion.

The full list of projects are available at whitehouse.gov.

(Via Broadband Breakfast, which also has a quote from Secretary Vilsack about the projects.)

“On a Wrong Path”

By Brad

In an editorial for the Tulsa World, Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry (D) has come out strongly against the FCC’s move to regulate the Internet under Title II:

[T]he path the FCC proposes — reclassifying broadband under an arcane section of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 — will make it very difficult, if not impossible, to achieve the lofty goal of universal broadband access across the U.S. If the FCC continues on its present course, there is a real threat to rural communities and populations which are underserved by broadband access today.

The chilling effect such a move will have on private investment and job creation is real and is already being felt from Wall Street to Main Street, as Washington moves ever closer to more onerous regulation of the Internet. We cannot afford to stifle private investment, job creation and economic recovery, especially now.

Read the whole thing.

Delay Damage

By Brad

In the wake of the NTIA’s announcement that the first round of broadband grants would be delayed until December, many rural WiMAX providers are finding themselves in a tough stpot. From Wireless Week:

According to Luisa Handem, managing director of the Rural Mobile Broadband Alliance (RuMBA USA), the delay is affecting several RuMBA-affiliated companies and will both delay and jeopardize some wireless broadband programs initiated by the group’s members.

“Money needs to be on the ground and in the hands of those deploying broadband as soon as possible,” Handem said. “This is not welcome news.”

Broadband Benefit Tour

By Brad

With $7.2 billion in federal dollars earmarked for broadband expansion in rural and underserved areas, members of the Obama administration are hitting the road to tout the benefits of being wired.

Today Vice-President Joe Biden is making stops in northwestern Pennsylvania, while Commerce Secretary Gary Locke is in Cleveland.

IIA in the News

By IIA

Minnesota Farm Guide edition:

Broadband access can offer job opportunities, economic development and improved quality of life.

One group helping to lead efforts for universal broadband is the U.S. Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA).

Based in Washington, D.C., IIA is a non-profit organization guided by the principle that any family or business without broadband access is at a disadvantage to those who do have broadband.
 
“There is going to be a lot of talk about broadband in the next one or two years. An integral part of that discussion is what’s happening in rural America - how do we get up to the speed they need to lead a broadband life?” said Larry Irving, co-chair of the U.S. Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA).

Check out the full interview.

“We’re All Americans”

By Brad

Today’s USA Today has an extensive article on the pressing need to connect rural America with broadband. Check it out.

Broadband Fact of the Week

By IIA

From the vantage point of 2008, the 94 percent of U.S. schools with Internet access use almost exclusively broadband connections, but residentially-based broadband in rural areas continues to lag the availability in metropolitan regions.

Robert LaRose et. al., “Closing the Rural Broadband Gap,” Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media, Michigan State University. November 30, 2008.

More facts about rural broadband access.

Reporting on Rural Broadband

By Brad

Yesterday the FCC released its report on the state of rural broadband. Ars Technica digs in:

The document urges reform of the Universal Service Fund, but is very brief about how. It looks for ways to encourage interagency cooperation, recommending that the FCC create a “comprehensive website that will provide a centralized access portal for information concerning all federal programs addressing broadband.” But beyond that, the report calls for the continuation of the National Economic Council’s interagency working group, and not a lot more. Much of the essay is an encyclopedia of extant consultative agreements between states, localities, Indian tribes, and Federal agencies.

More coverage of the report from the Wall Street Journal.

IIA Video: Why Broadband Matters to Rural America

By IIA

Leroy Watson, Legislative Director of the National Grange, discusses why broadband matters to rural communities—especially concerning the fading cultural differences between rural and urban areas.

Broadband Fact of the Week

By IIA

Roughly one-third of households in rural America cannot subscribe to broadband Internet services at any price.

Peha, Jon M. “Bringing Broadband to Unserved Communities.” Part of The Hamilton Project, Advancing Opportunity, Prosperity and Growth. (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution). May, 2008.

More facts about rural broadband.

We Are All Unserved

By Brad

Speaking of the recent Benton Foundation broadband event, App-Rising has an extensive recap of the discussion. The full thing is worth reading, but this observation from Seattle CTO Bill Schrier stands out:

The most powerful statement Bill made was the observation that virtually the entire US is unserved. He says this because if a community were fully served it’d have fiber, yet the vast majority of Americans do not have access to this level of world-class broadband. He then took it a step further, arguing that the reason telework doesn’t work is that we don’t have universal access to high-speed, symmetrical broadband, the kind of connectivity that fiber delivers. Then he drove the point home with a series of rhetorical questions: With the stimulus are we going to build roads? Are we going to build copper? Or are we going to build fiber?

As they say, read the whole thing.

If You Build It, They’re Ready

By Brad

Recently, the Benton Foundation held a discussion on independent broadband. And as Ars Technica reports, rural broadband providers wanted to clear the air about rural areas and demand—namely, that despite reports to the contrary, there is a demand:

“It clearly is a myth,” declared Gary Evans of Hiawatha Broadband Communications, a rural ISP based in Minnesota. “We are not a low priced provider in any community that we serve, but we are a broadband provider.” In one rural region, Evans noted, 60 percent of the population signed up with the company “before we put a shovel in the ground.”

“Now, I would suggest to you that if there’s no demand out there, that simply would not be the case,” he insisted.

IIA Video: Telemedicine and Rural Areas

By IIA

Dr. Jay Sanders, President Emeritus of the American Telemedicine Association, discusses the impact of broadband on rural hospitals and their ability to access non-local specialists through telemedicine, as well as using telemedicine to improve the quality of care while reducing rehospitaliztion in all communities.

Guest Blog: Thoughts on Telemedicine From Vegas

By IIA

Carl W. Taylor, IIA Ambassador and Director of the Center for Strategic Health Innovation at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine, attended a recent telemedicine conference in Las Vegas. Here’s his report:

This is not the blog I intended to post from the American Telemedicine Association meeting in Las Vegas. I was going to blog on the rapid emergence of large corporations into the telehealth arena. To be sure there are still small to mid size company innovations such as InTouchHealths robotics and Vecna’s health kiosk and deployable field ready health stations. But the real buzz this year in the growing presence of companies like Cisco, Bosch and Intel. After 4 decades of being the odd rounding error in the healthcare industry, telehealth may finally be ready to emerge as a valid and commercially viable delivery option. Now my preference will be to remain hopeful that the e-health, HIT, EHR, Health 2.0 , informatics, and telehealth industries will consolidate or at least learn to play nicely together so we dont go from paper silos of fragmented care to digital silos of fragmented care. At the very least the emergence of large companies whose portfolios also include e-health and Health 2.0 strategies should push this consolidation. The ATA conference is also a bit unique in that it grew this year despite a contracting economy and though there were a few no shows due to travel restrictions in state budgets, the lure of stimulus dollars and expanded industry presence made for an outstanding turnout.

Now, let me leave traditional healthcare delivery behind and talk about what I think is an even more timely issue. As I write this we are on the front end of trying to understand the H1N1 Swine Flu outbreak. Half of my day job is teaching disaster preparedness and deploying a situational awareness software tool to over 1,000 healthcare users (we give it away so this isnt a pitch). We have worked hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters for several years in the Deep South. For the response to those events our state and federally managed system of human volunteer deployment works well. However, I believe there will be challenges to the movement of human volunteers into areas of any widespread outbreak. Widespread infectious disease outbreaks highlight the need for a broadband communication response system of virtual medical care delivered to the point of need. What will be needed if not in this outbreak, certainly in others, will be the need to provide robust real time one to one, peer to peer and one to many healthcare.

In many parts of this country specialists with critical skills are embedded in large urban medical or university settings. Widespread outbreaks, particularly those with animal vectors are just as likely to be found in rural settings. Consequently connecting the specialists virtually to the patients without the need of either to travel is simply a paramount requirement. There are good examples of networks poised to deliver this kind of virtual care such as the Montana Infectious Disease Network, whose work was presented at the ATA Disaster Special Interest Group program yesterday morning (disclaimer I had a very small role in establishing that network). I recognize building a business plan around low frequency but high severity disasters is difficult, but once established these networks can, and should also be able to support daily healthcare needs as well. Regardless, as we consider the emerging consequences of this event the need to develop regional virtual disaster medical assistance teams with robust communication connectivity becomes apparent.

Broadband Fact of the Week

By IIA

The rural demand for broadband can be seen from the level of utilization for those who do subscribe. Rural households transfer more information on average than their urban counterparts. This may be because rural users turn to the Internet for products and services that they cannot get locally, whereas urban users have more options.

Peha, Jon M. “Bringing Broadband to Unserved Communities.” Part of The Hamilton Project, Advancing Opportunity, Prosperity and Growth. (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution) May 2008.

More facts about broadband and rural areas.

Teaming Up For Stimulus

By Brad

With the $7.2 billion in federal money approved for broadband deployment yet to be tapped, companies hoping to dip into the funds continue to jockey for position. Via the Wall Street Journal:

The National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative, which represents 1,500 rural utilities and telecom providers, recently announced a deal with WiMAX provider DigitalBridge Communications, which offers high-speed wireless broadband service in rural areas. The rural utilities cooperative is pouring $10 million in funding into DigitalBridge in hopes that the company will help its members offer more wireless broadband services in rural areas — and potentially win some of the broadband stimulus funding.

Grant proposal details are expected from Commerce and Agriculture Departments sometime this month.

The Rural Push

By Brad

With $7 billion waiting to be deployed for broadband expansion, connecting rural areas is getting a lot of focus. From the Wall Street Journal:

Rural communications networks that connect to major Internet arteries will be key investments that will come from the $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus money, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama said Wednesday.
“Investments in backhaul networks, particularly in rural communities, will likely be particularly helpful,” said Susan Crawford, a National Economic Council member and special assistant to the president.
Major carriers such as Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) and Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) and some cable operators have said Obama’s goal of blanketing the country with high-speed Internet can’t be accomplished without significant investment in so-called “backhaul” networks that stretch to hard-to-reach communities.
There is some debate, however, about whether those networks should be financed with government money or private-sector investments. Extending cable to rural communities can be prohibitively expensive for Internet carriers, which is why those areas tend to have few connectivity options.

Desperate for Broadband

By Brad

Wonder how much broadband access would mean to many unserved rural areas? Look no further than this article from The Tennessean:

The high-speed computer connections most urban residents and businesses take for granted are nowhere to be found in many rural, and not-so-rural, areas in Middle Tennessee.

The federal government is hoping to change that with an infusion of $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus money to the states.

“We’re desperate for broadband access,” said James T. Marshall, supervisor of technology for Robertson County schools, who spends his days setting up online educational programs that many of his students can’t access at home. Many parts of Robertson County are unserved by any high-speed Internet provider — including Marshall’s neighborhood, just south of Springfield.

“I am four miles from a major city. Four miles. And I cannot get DSL at my house,” he said, referring to the high-speed lines he has tried, without success, to convince AT&T to extend his neighborhood. “How much sense does it make that people are begging for a service and companies still won’t provide it?”

IIA in the News

By IIA

Fortune dives into the rural broadband efforts:

Rural America is about to get gold-plated broadband service, if the results of a recent survey of telecommunications companies are to be believed.

Of the 100 rural operators polled by telecom-equipment maker Calix, nearly two-thirds say they plan to apply for federal stimulus money aimed at getting rural communities hooked up to speedy Internet connections. And most providers say they are looking at deploying super-fast fiber-to-the-home technology instead of the coaxial cable or copper technologies that now serve most urban and suburban U.S. communities.

Later in the article, IIA co-chairman Bruce Mehlman is quoted:

The enthusiasm shown by the small to mid-sized rural providers in the survey strikes a very different tone from the comments made by their big brothers, such as AT&T (T, Fortune 500), Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) or Comcast (CMCSA, Fortune 500), all of whom have hinted they might drop out of the grant race altogether if the government tries to impose too many restrictions on the grant recipients’ business practices. (Some of this, undoubtedly, is part of the political process.) “If regulations are onerous, then yes, it will slow down investment,” says Bruce Mehlman, co-chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance, a trade group.

Check out the full Fortune piece.