State Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, left, jokes with FCC Commissioner Michael Copps at the Rural Broadband Round Table Summit on Wednesday at Kansas University's Dole Institute of Politics. Access to broadband communications is a right, not a luxury, for all Americans, Copps said at the event, which drew Kansas government officials and local business leaders. He argued that rural America will fall further behind if broadband communications don't become accessible soon.
Three Questions with ... Michael Copps, FCC commissioner
Michael Copps, a FCC commissioner in town for the 'Rural Broadband Summit,' answers three questions about broadband. Enlarge video
Rural Broadband Summit held at Dole Institute
A conference at KU concentrates on speeding up the information superhighway throughout the country. Rural areas need the same access to high-speed internet as the nation's most populous areas. Enlarge video
State legislators, federal regulators and a U.S. congressman say they don't know how to push broadband technology into the nation's rural areas.
But they know it has to happen.
"It's not a do-good or social-policy thing," said Michael Copps, a Federal Communications Commission commissioner. "That's not the way to look at it. It's a competitive business thing. A small businessman or woman out there in rural Kansas who is trying to start a company, if they don't have high-speed, they can't compete with that person in the big city - much less with somebody in downtown Seoul or in India or in China, where other people are starting their own small businesses.
"You can't compete with their data and the outreach and the capacity in responding to the market."
Copps was the featured speaker during the Rural Broadband Round Table Summit, conducted Wednesday at Kansas University's Dole Institute of Politics.
The event, organized by state Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, drew lawmakers, regulators and other government officials to sit alongside business executives and others involved in the telecommunications industry to discuss closing the digital divide: the gap between high-speed Internet access common in metropolitan areas and the slower, dial-up service that often serves rural areas.
Copps, for one, advocates using the Universal Service Fund - a charge assessed on phone bills - to extend broadband service into rural areas, where companies often shy away from serving with high-speed service because of the relatively high cost of doing so.
But Copps said that the cost of not doing so is even higher, given the immensely competitive world of global commerce, life-saving possibilities of telemedicine and world-changing opportunities offered by educational access.
"Congress needs to rationalize all this and figure out what kind of tax incentives, what kind of other incentives must be there to encourage the deployment of broadband," Copps said.
U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., whose congressional district includes many rural areas still awaiting reliable broadband service, said that the federal government had $1 billion available today to address such needs, through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But all parties involved - businesses, government and communities themselves - need to keep talking to come up with a solution that meets the needs of a changing world.
"We're making progress, in Kansas and across the country," Moran said. "But ultimately, it's got to be done in a way that gives the necessary speed and quality so that it doesn't matter where you live, and you can quickly access information on the Internet. That's the goal."
Sloan, for his part, knows that the solution won't be easy to find. That was evident from the discussions among nearly 100 people attending the summit.
But he's confident there's an answer out there.
"That's part of the reason for having this meeting, is to figure out who doesn't have broadband, how do we get it to them and how do we pay for it," he said.
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riverat (Joe Hyde) says…
This conference was a very cool, very constructive thing that Rep. Sloan did. From this conference I hope that somehow soon rural residents can enjoy the availability of high-speed broadband access. We city dwellers with broadband really need to visit someone who lives out in the country, someone who has dial-up service only, to fully appreciate the time frustration they endure when performing even the simplest Internet tasks and information inquiries. The introduction of reliable high-speed broadband systems in rural areas could almost literally change the face of farming and country living in Kansas. Change it for the better.
hskrbkr (anonymous) says…
We live in rural Jefferson County and have a satellite connection for internet service. It works well but is a bit pricey. On the balance though it is cheaper than any dial-up service we can get because the local phone charge alone costs more than our satellite service. I think a broadband solution for rural areas is important, but dial-up isn't the only option available out there these days.
PAB (anonymous) says…
Having the Universal Service Fund help promote rural broadband build out is an idea the Communications Workers of America supports thru it's Speed Matters project. Visit us at www.speedmatters.org
jrlii (anonymous) says…
Back in the '90s the Feds passed out $200,000,000,000 in tax credits to the phone companies to extend broadband both nationwide and to the home. And they weren't expecting the poky stuff that passes as broadband these days (anything over about 200Kbps), but 20Mbps plus. The phone companies didn't deliver squat, while taking all two hundred billion dollars of tax benefits. . .
See http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/20... for details.
Ragingbear (anonymous) says…
Soon everyone will be able to get online and go to www.yousuredogotaprettymouth.gov
shorttrees (anonymous) says…
Actually a large part of rural Western KS DOES have broadband access every bit as fast as our own through Sunflower Cablevision! Businesses and residences served by Pioneer Telephone have had really good high speed access for going on ten years. The areas that get left behind worst are the "rural near city" areas such as we have locally. My folks live 20-some miles from any town out there and have better speed than we do sometimes.
go_jayhawks (anonymous) says…
We live in rural Jefferson county and have had reliable broadband for about two years. We use http://www.tfmcomm.com/ out of Topeka. The connection is off their towers so it's not available to everyone but it's worth a try. I believe they supply the schools with broadband. They have offices in Lawrence too.
jrlii (anonymous) says…
As I understand it, in Tokyo you can get an honest 100MBps internet connection for about $15/month. As near as I can tell that sort of performance would require multiple T-3 lines and cost kilobucks a month here.
Ragingbear (anonymous) says…
You can get a jillion GBits per second and still not see any noticable improvement of your internet surfing.
People don't seem to understand that servers have to pay for their bandwidth. Both the amount of total traffic and maximum simultaneous bandwidth. Most places go for a minimal amount. This results in most of your slow loading sites. It's not how fast YOU connect to The Internet (to a degree) but how fast THEIR internet connection is.