Rural High Speed Internet: Industry Wants To Let the Marketplace Prevail. Good Luck With That.

Monday's Wisconsin State Journal reports that Rural residents without high-speed Internet struggle to keep up

...wireless service isn’t available everywhere, either, leaving thousands of rural Wisconsin homeowners, entrepreneurs and farmers still clamoring for high-speed Internet service..State Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, said he has fielded hundreds of complaints from constituents who still can’t get connected. "I’ve got kids who can’t access the Internet to do their homework," Schultz said. "That’s intolerable."

In the 1930's, progressive forces supported regulation of the telephone and electric power industries requiring service providers to wire rural America and low income communities that the utilities deemed otherwise unprofitable. Further, the Rural Electrification Act subsidized co-ops that brought power and phones to the farm communities of America.

Until last year, Wisconsin took the same position on the regulation and buildout of cable television systems. That position was reversed when the legislature deregulated the cable industry, saying that it agreed with the free market neocons, that the marketplace would take care of things.

It will take a major reversal for the state government to weigh in and require Internet service providers to build a high speed system that provides access to unprofitable areas of the state. The existing telecommunications providers, which includes cable companies, are already lobbying to assure such a reversal won't happen.  Rural residents better get used to dial-up service and forget about participating in the information economy.

Comments

[nonheroicvet]

Seems odd that we pay a fee on our phone bill so that people in mountain top homes in Utah can have phone service while people here still have primitive service just above two tin cans and a string.

[R.J.]

Then I want my all of my 'Universal Access Fees' returned. Or are they now supporting a federal meals-on-wheels program or global warming ad campaign?

[Rich]

"Rural residents better get used to dial-up service and forget about participating in the information economy."

Am I missing something? Or can't they get broadband coverage from Sprint or Nextel or some other wireless company?

[R.J.]

Look at the AT&T/Verizon/Sprint 3G maps, the light areas are rural, and dark areas are urban.
Even if the signal doesn't crap out, you're nuts if you pay $60/mo for home use with the 55MB download limit.
Wireless, mostly, is meant to augment road warriors' capabilities and to look cool at Starbucks.
The next option is HughesNet for $250 up front and $80/mo (still need dial-up to upload, I believe). Meanwhile, keep paying the extra $6/mo fee (tax) for the fun of it. =(

[Drew]

It's sad when the US can't keep up with say South Korea or Panama when it comes to internet access. ribal Panamanian Indians have better access than farmers in Ohio. I have been to both countries for a year at a time and I scratch my head wondering how they can do it and we can't. Well, we could, but we don't for some lame excuse. Rural Ohio only has satelite and unreliable cell phone service. DSL should easily be available! What a bunch of bull. If they placed a pallet of material at my parents door step I would install the cable and connection myself. If I can do it for the military in the middle of nowhere why can't we do it in rural America? Politics, money, and beaurecrats are keeping us from having what we should easily be able to have. A reliable & affordable broadband internet connection for rural america is a must. Communities, governments, and schools use the internet as it was intended. My parents have to drive 15 miles to the library to use a high speed connection. So sad.

[high speed service]

High speed internet service vary on different locations. I bet this service were so in demand because of social media widespread. To look beyond its advantages to some business are really useful, it widens out friendship around the net. I guess High speed internet services will be a necessity for the coming years because of social media. It will encompass all transaction that deals with communication.