COVID-Era Rural Broadband Blues
Talk about pouring salt into an open wound. Even prior to COVID-19, everyone knew the state of rural broadband was not good. What this pandemic did was not only expose how deep the digital divide truly is between rural residents and their city cousins but also widened it by a country mile.
As business, school and nearly all aspects of daily life for most Americans went virtual and online, this shift put an unbelievable amount of strain on the communication infrastructure that we depend on to function as a modern society. Rural areas were much less prepared for this accelerated warp-speed digital transformation. The numbers shared below tell the unsettling story of the state of internet connectivity.
Nearly 600% Increase
That’s how much Zoom’s parent company stock was up in 2020. Online gaming was up nearly 115%, and Netflix streaming use spiked 40% due to COVID. All the above require some serious bandwidth.
60%
That’s the alarming portion of U.S. farmers who say they do not have enough connectivity to run their businesses. This is from a study done by the United Soybean Board and published late last year. Upwards of 50% said without better broadband, significant digital advancement on their farms will simply not happen.
21.3 Million
This many Americans, or 6.5% of the population, lack access to broadband internet, according to the most recent FCC numbers. However, based on survey data provided by the third-party firm BroadbandNow Research, the real numbers are likely twice that—upwards of 42 million.
20X Faster
That’s the speed improvement cellular 5G technology is supposed to have over the current 4G LTE. But the hurdles to installing this system are high-dollar investments with denser transmission equipment deployment. Expect a slow rollout.
$47.3 Billion
From 2009 to 2017, the U.S. government spent that amount on programs specifically to improve rural broadband. The question is what did that get us if 60% of our nation’s food producers still have an inadequate utility to do business?
$20-PLUS BILLION RURAL DIGITAL OPPORTUNITY FUND
The question is do we really have a good plan for that money as it’s allocated in the next 10 years, given it looks like the FCC doesn’t even know how many people don’t have suitable broadband speeds in the first place? Plus, handing out money to the same old players and expecting a different end result is what Einstein classified as the definition of insanity.
Maybe the phone companies aren’t the 21st century answer or at least not the only answer. Might it be time to give companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX a shot with its ambitious Starlink satellite internet project to put more than 12,000 small satellites in low-earth orbit to beam high-speed internet anywhere in the world? There are already more than 700 satellites in orbit, and preliminary ground testing has already begun. In fact, Starlink provided remote internet service to emergency command centers directing firefighting crews in Oregon and Washington.
Why not give him and other innovators a shot at boosting bandwidth in rural America?
The reality is rural America seriously needs a better broadband plan, and it is time for a louder voice from key farm groups and representatives and some new faces at the bargaining table before this next round of money becomes dust in the wind.
