Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Conflicting Reports from Minneapolis Broadband Summit

At the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, a broadband summit to address the service-level divide for rural households was standing room only yesterday. Organized by U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the summit was to address the lagging availability of high-speed broadband connections in rural areas. The summit featured FCC chairman Julius Genachowski as a presenter.

Genachowski challenged that the greatest casualties of the lagging broadband are education, health care, and job creation. Calling it a "national crisis", Genachowski re-iterated the need for his National Broadband Plan, unveiled back in march, continuing to argue that regulations are needed for ISP's in the best interest of the country.

But, the statistics that Klobuchar and Genachowski presented at this summit seem weak in making their case. First, whereas only 6% of households in rural areas had high-speed internet access in 2000, that number is over 60% today. It seems that Minnesota, sans Broadband Plan, has made some incredible strides on it's own.

Moreover, Genachowski's plea that job creation and education will suffer don't seem to coincide with the demographics of this under-served rural market that still remains. Less than 20% of the households still without high-speed broadband are of retirement age. Only a fraction of those households even own a home computer. Which leads to the question: what job creation is Genachowski talking about, precisely?

Of course, the b2b side of things must also be considered--namely Genachowski's health care position. The doctors offices servicing these rural communities also suffer from similar lack of service, and health information available via the Internet is unattainable for the aging demographic identified earlier.

I cannot say that I disagree with the Broadband Plan's premise, nor Genachowski's agenda. However, it is apparent that they could use some better data in building their argument. The bottom line is: will there be enough of a benefit to our nation to warrant the cost of bringing broadband to Small Town, USA?

Labels: Broadband Plan, Rural Broadband, Rural Broadband Access