Stimulus funds could bring broadband access to rural Missourians
May 7, 2009
Anchor Intro: Columbia residents may take access to high speed internet for granted, but some Missourians aren’t so lucky — only about 45 percent of homes statewide have broadband internet.
KBIA’s Elle Moxley explains how money from the stimulus package may bring faster internet to rural areas.
(3:31)
Just outside of Republic, Missouri, Mark Crabtree built the perfect home. He has a few acres, a couple of neighbors, and Greene County’s second largest city just a few minutes down the road. But if he wants to get online, his only affordable option is dial-up.
“When I moved out there, I figured new phone lines, it’s a new home, I built it. It was a matter of time, as big as Republic was, before they would expand DSL and cable my way, but it just never happened.”
Crabtree is one of more than 3 million Missourians living without high speed internet. He says the lack of affordable broadband severely limits what he can do online.
“Basically, what I can get done is if I want a recipe for barbeque ribs, then it’ll take me three or four minutes to find it.”
That’s how long it takes Crabtree to connect to the internet, open a search engine and find a single recipe. With a high speed connection, he says he could be outside firing up the grill in the same amount of time.
Crabtree says telecommuting isn’t an option, even though as an information technology professional at Drury University in nearby Springfield, he could occasionally work from home.
But broadband may be in Crabtree’s future. As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the government plans to invest 7.2 billion dollars in high speed internet for unserved and underserved areas.
Timothy Karr is campaign director for the media reform organization Free Press, which supports the “Internet for Everyone” initiative. In terms of broadband access, he says that the United States has slipped from fourth to twenty-second globally in the last eight years.
“So it’s an urgent issue. This is essential infrastructure for the twenty-first century. It’s like we built railroads and roads and strung electrical lines, and now we need to look at the internet as key to our survival and prosperity.”
Karr says broadband is vital to access information, provide education and increase telecommuting capabilities. But about 40 percent of Americans don’t have high speed internet at home. Low-income, ethnic minority and rural households are the least likely to have access to broadband technology.
Karr says the stimulus package will provide internet service providers with loans, grants and incentives to build out their rural infrastructure.
“There are some states, some of the more rural states and some of the more impoverished states, that have a higher demand for this sort of services, and I expect you’ll see some kind of a special emphasis there.”
But there may not be enough money to go around. Rich Wonders is vice president of marketing for telecommunications giant Alcatel-Lucent. Wonders says seven billion dollars doesn’t scratch the surface of US telecommunications needs. So his company has stepped in to help its customers write applications for stimulus money.
“This is somewhat of a beauty contest. It’s important that those applications stand out and that they create value in the communities where they are delivering service, that there’s a strong component around the creation and sustainability of jobs.”
In the past, opponents of rural broadband have argued that everyone pays more when coverage is extended to under-populated areas. But Crabtree isn’t buying it. He says it wasn’t that long ago that people protested postal delivery to rural areas, a practice that is now commonplace.
“We’re talking about being sustainable, we’re talking about not using so much fuel. What’s the most practical thing you can do? Use your e-mail instead of the postal service, and do a lot of your work at home.”
For now, Crabtree will continue to drive five miles into town to use his laptop at the local library, which has free public WiFi.
Elle Moxley, KBIA News.