Analysis shows that broadband access gap in Minnesota shrinking; More households have access at State and FCC Speed Goal Tiers

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St Paul, MN – New research unveiled today by Connect Minnesota shows that the broadband availability gap in Minnesota is shrinking, with 85.09% of Minnesota residents now having access to broadband speeds of 6 Mbps download/1.5 Mbps upload, compared to 81.20% last October. In addition, 59.92% of Minnesota households can access broadband at speeds of at least 10 Mbps download/6 Mbps upload – the minimum speed threshold for Minnesota’s goal of ubiquitous broadband availability – a nearly 3% increase from October 2011.

“It is encouraging to see that the efforts of providers and all state stakeholders to increase broadband access are showing clear results,” said Connect Minnesota Program Manager Bill Hoffman. “These efforts, however, must continue in order to bring the empowering technology of broadband to the roughly 2 percent of Minnesota residents who remain unserved. And while the majority of the state can access basic broadband speeds, our 2011 survey results show 28% of the population still does not use broadband at home.”

Nonprofit Connect Minnesota has been working since 2009 to ensure that Minnesota residents have access to the economic, educational, and quality of life benefits derived from increased broadband access, adoption, and use. Part of that work includes mapping Minnesota’s broadband availability and providing analysis to the Broadband Taskforce, broadband providers, policymakers, and community planners.

Among the findings of the new broadband availability research are:

• 85.09% of Minnesota households can access broadband at advertised speeds of 6 Mbps download/1.5 Mbps upload, meaning that 311,000 households are in areas that may be eligible for Universal Service Fund broadband deployment subsidies.
• 59.92% of Minnesota households can access broadband at speeds of at least 10 Mbps download/6 Mbps upload – the minimum speed threshold for Minnesota’s goal of ubiquitous broadband availability*.
• 94.83% of rural households in Minnesota have access to broadband.
• 67.66% of Minnesota households have access to broadband speeds of at least 100 Mbps download/1.5 Mbps upload. In October 2011 only 45.30% of households in Minnesota had access to these broadband speeds.
• Broadband at the basic 768 Kbps/200 Kbps tier is available to 97.77% of Minnesota households, up from 97.08% last October.
• 88.1% ofMinnesota households have the ability to choose broadband service from two or more non-mobile broadband providers

Note: The data in this report are subject to data validation.

*Minnesota Statute 237.012 indicates upload goal of 5 Mbps. Data collection only conforms with speed tiers as represented in the SBI NOFA where 6 Mbps is the most comparable upload speed tier. This means that across the state, approximately 837,000 households are not connected to services that meet the state’s target.

Last month, Connect Minnesota released an innovative new broadband mapping tool called My ConnectView offering unmatched views of Minnesota’s technology landscape. Residents and businesses are encouraged to use the interactive map to find area providers and help validate the data.

Connect Minnesota’s research was conducted as part of the State Broadband Initiative (SBI) grant program, funded by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The data were gathered in accordance with the requirements of the Notice of Funds Availability (NOFA) and subsequent clarifications set forth by NTIA. The process begins by contacting all known providers in the state and providing information about the broadband mapping project. Information on broadband service areas is collected from each willing provider through voluntary participation. A nondisclosure agreement (NDA) is offered to all providers prior to the submission of data; the data protected through the NDA is limited to highly sensitive network infrastructure information, including middle-mile locations. Connected Nation strives to maintain a flexible mapping process in order to be able to collect data from providers in a variety of formats based on providers’ technical capabilities and resources.

Here’s a picture painted from a recent report (The Broadband Imperative: Recommendations to Address K-12 Education Infrastructure Needs) from the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA).

Broadband is Essential

It is a simple fact that access to high-speed broadband is now as vital a component of K-12 school infrastructure as electricity, air conditioning, and heating. … In fact, out-of-school access to broadband by students and teachers is now arguably as important to the overall quality of the student learning experience as access at school.

Broadband Supply is Inadequate

While a 2010 Federal Communications Commission survey of E-Rate funded schools found that most had access to some form of broadband service, nearly 80% of respondents reported that their broadband connections were inadequate to meet their current needs. Outside of school, home broadband adoption rates have all but stalled since 2009, leveling off at roughly 65%.

STEDA made four recommendations:

1. Recommendation 1: Move to Address K-12 Broadband Infrastructure Needs. The set a target for 2014-2015 of at least 100 Mbps per 1,000 students/staff for an Internet connection and at least 1 Gbps per 1,000 students/staff for the WAN.
2. Recommendation 2: Ensure Broadband Access for Students and Educators
3. Recommendation 3: Build State Leadership
4. Recommendation 4: Advocate for Federal Funding

I want to interject a note here from a recent The DLTCL Electronic Newsletter that brings home the importance of Federal funding…

The Federal Communications Commission recently released information outlining the fund demand for the July 1, 2012, E-rate year. Here are some (sobering) highlights.

• Total demand for 2012 is $5.237 billion. This is an increase of 21.5 percent from the demand for 2011 of $4.310 billion.
• Demand for Priority 1 funding (telecommunications and Internet services) is $2.444 billion. For the first time in the program, the Priority 1 demand exceeds the $2.3 billion in funding available, without rollover funds. (Each year there are some funds not used from previous years. It is estimated that for 2012 this “rollover” may be about $400 million.)
• Demand for Priority 2 funding (internal connections) at a 90% discount is $1.379 billion.

What does all this mean? Assuming no major changes in the above figures, all eligible Priority 1 applications will be funded. However, most Priority 2 applications cannot be funded. State E-rate coordinators were in Washington recently and met with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Schools and Libraries Program staff to review various E-rate issues, including the 2012 fund demand. Federal officials do not know how they will address the funding issue, although FCC regulations say that when there are not enough funds, they are to prorate discounts. (Note: DPI has routinely filed comments with the FCC requesting that the discounts be reduced to address this funding issue.)

It is expected that schools and libraries will start to be notified of approved applications for the July 1 funding year later in May.

Clearly access is a bottleneck, at home and at the schools. I think that the numbers can be overwhelming for most people. What’s the difference between 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps? The SETDA report does a nice job of explaining what a school can do with various speeds; I’ve abridged the scenarios below. To put it into perspective think about which experience you’d like to see your kid or your future employee to have. In other words – how are we preparing future workers?

Basic Connectivity for Supplemental Enrichment – 10 Kbps per student/staff broadband connection

Students are scheduled to visit a central lab to access locally-run software applications, go online to conduct research for term papers, and compose occasional papers and presentations. Faculty and staff might use the network primarily for email and to post newsletter updates.

Emerging Reliance on Online Educational Tools and Resources – 50 Kbps per student/staff broadband connection

The school implements a partial 1-to-1 laptop program (9th and 10th grades only) and encourages its students to use their devices to access the web for more dynamic content, collaborate with other students, download videos, and receive and post assignments on the school’s learning management system.

Transformation to a Technology-Rich Learning Environment – minimum of 100 Kbps per student/staff broadband connection

Students actively use their laptops in class to access rich, multimedia-enhanced educational content from the Internet. They post their content (including audio and video podcasts) to school learning management systems, access their e-textbooks and get their assignments online, and collaborate daily across the network with other students via wikis and other Internet-based applications.

As part of a larger, ongoing research project, this paper discusses the digital presence of rural businesses in 23 communities. We define digital presence as any locally controlled webpages, social media, or GooglePlace pages devoted to an entity, i.e., a private business, nonprofit, or government office, within a community. Overall, the digital presence of 85 townships and cities were assessed.

Here are the results:

Across the 23 communities, an average of 42.6 percent of businesses had a website. On average, 9.9 percent of businesses in each community used social media. More businesses showed activity on their GooglePlace pages. No major difference was found between the control and intervention communities for website and social media use.

The research seemed to pinpoint a few reasons that communities seemed to have more businesses online that their cohort communities

• MIRC communities saw slightly higher use of GooglePlace pages. UMN MIRC business training sessions focus on GooglePlace.
• Businesses in growing communities have a higher proportion of websites, are more likely to use social media for business, and have a higher proportion of GooglePlaces with owner verification and content.

The report adds that since the study was inclusive, not random, in nature that it doesn’t necessarily reflect all of rural Minnesota – but it does include 23% of rural businesses. So I suspect the rest of the state would follow suit. Check out the actual report if you want to see the list of specific communities and how they fared.

One fun follow up – the researchers used business listing from InfoUSA (a tried a true market research tool) to get lists of businesses. While the raw data from the report if not available to the general public, they have shared it with the individual communities so that efforts can be made to approach businesses to encourage them to learn more about effectively using the Internet to market themselves. As Hans wrote to me, “the important thing is that this is information that can help communities make “informed, intentional, positive choices about their future.”

One quick high level stat – how important is it to you to have computer and Internet access at home?

Take that question and drill down by neighborhood and you can see how the details shine a light on areas that could possibly benefit from digital inclusion programs and/or public awareness campaign:

Now consider if you were looking to relocate to Minneapolis – and this was the one piece of information you had. Which neighborhood would you choose? Or from a more positive perspective, if you were looking to close the digital divide in Minneapolis, where would you start? If you drill down into the survey, you should be able to dissect interest and experience with technology by neighborhood, which would be of even more help when planning a digital literacy program. You would know what folks were using for computers (smartphones, library computers, tablets, nothing?), you’d know what they were already doing (email, text, web) and could build a program to meet those needs and more. It’s a very thorough report. Here’s the summary of findings…

Survey questions captured Minneapolis residents’ opinions and preferences related to technology, as well as their access to computers and the Internet. Overall, residents thought somewhat favorably of technology in Minneapolis, saw computers and the Internet as important, had a computer and Internet access and accessed the Internet regularly (most commonly via a high‐speed connection). Residents generally found help for any computer or Internet issues through a variety of means and participated frequently and comfortably in many basic digital activities, including emailing and using social media. However, meaningful differences were seen across the 11 communities that comprise Minneapolis as well as among different sociodemographic characteristics.

But again I think much of the value (to folks in the city) is in the detail.

The FirstNet plan is to build a broadband network for police, firefighters, emergency medical service professionals, and other public safety officials. FirstNet is really just getting going – but there are some plans. First plan is for FirstNet to work with state, local and tribal governments. A goal is to create an interoperable, cohesive, countrywide network. That being said, states can opt-out of FirstNet. Apparently the plan (and I’m gleaning this from the webcast) is for FirstNet to come to the states with an assessment of what the state has and what they need. And RFP will be created from these assessments.

A Minnesota Public Safety Broadband Wireless Data Network Requirements Study has recently been released…

This comprehensive study was conducted through 2010-2012 to assess the needs of public safety wireless broadband in Minnesota. It is available in five sections, which each focus on a different interest area in public safety broadband. This study will form the foundation of Minnesota public safety broadband planning efforts and our interaction with national entities such as Firstnet.

I thought it might be helpful to share the recommendations from the report…

1. Establish a body under the Statewide Radio Board to officially sanction public safety broadband planning activities and to represent the State before the FCC, NTIA, Firstnet, and standards bodies including 3GPP.
2. Develop a Minnesota Public Safety Wireless Broadband Plan based upon its existing planning activities and current research.
3. Develop applications and data interoperability standards, including standardized SDKs, APIs, and network interfaces as well as media codecs, signaling formats, and container formats.
4. Execute formal MOUs with potential partners for the public safety broadband network to clearly identify all feasible avenues for alternative financial models for both construction and maintenance of the network.
5. Expand public safety broadband planning on a regional basis to ensure interoperability with adjacent states and the provinces of Manitoba and Ontario.
6. Work actively in larger planning and standards-setting with organizations including the FCC Technical Advisory Board, PSCR, NPSTC, 3GPP, and Firstnet to support development of national standards and a national network model that fully support the needs of the state of Minnesota.
7. Continue requirements research and planning efforts including expansion of its existing financial models, network design, network requirements, and user needs.
8. In the near term, construct a small public safety wireless broadband pilot network to identify transition and implementation issues specific to Minnesota, collect live user data, and serve as test-bed for innovative end-user applications.
9. In the long term, facilitate, through whichever means best meet the needs of our public safety community, integration into the national safety broadband network that introduces operational and technological efficiencies and enhances the performance of public safety services in the state of Minnesota to maximize the protection of human health, property, and safety.

The Blandin Foundation’s MIRC (Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities) project was selected for a similar evaluation for adoption projects. It’s great that the Federal government is taking evaluation a step farther than you might think they would. All of the award recipients have to track a range of items such as jobs, people trained, miles built – the items obviously vary depending on the type of project. This evaluation seems to go that extra step to see if life was made better through the investment – both from a social and economic perspective. It seems like we’ll glean more info that can be used both in and out of the federally funded/supported projects.

Blandin had the evaluators to visit some MIRC sites last fall. (I did a series of posts on our Minnesota tour with the evaluators.) It will be fun to see the results of that visit and learn more about what happened with Anoka County.

Last year, the FCC published a report that shows most broadband Internet providers aren’t providing the speeds and quality customers are paying for. The information is highly technical, and fairly overwhelming for the average consumer.

High Speed Experts has taken this information and displayed it in an easy-to-digest infographic format so that your readers can clearly see what their provider offers and whether or not they’re getting the best value.

Now it doesn’t take much sleuthing to see that they favor Verizon FIOS and they sport a Verizon FIOS ad on their homepage – but I still think that graphic is worth sharing – partially because it echoes conversations I’ve heard at the Minnesota Broadband Task Force meetings in the small group discussions on digital inclusion. The truth is many, if not most, residential users are unaware of their broadband options, they’re unaware of what’s the best fit for them and they don’t know if they’d got the best deal around or are being robbed.

I know that the National Broadband Plan was working on “transparency in the retail broadband market” and I know progress has been made with maps and speed tests. In fact with the handy National Broadband Plan Action Agenda, I can see that the tasks related to consumer benefits are 80 percent done. Maybe what they need to reach the 100 mark is some slick packaging!

Average Broadband Connection Speeds – The US comes in 13. Japan dominates the list of top global cities, especially in the top 50 cities. At number 51, Boston is the top US city listed. There are 22 US cities listed; none were in Minnesota.

Average Peak Connection Speeds – The US comes in 10. Japan and South Korea dominate the top city listings. North Bergen, NJ ranks top (for US city) at 24. The list includes 30 US cities in the top 100; none are in Minnesota.

Broadband Connectivity (broadband adoption) – The US comes in 12 for connectivity over 5 Mbps; we rank at 35 for connectivity over 2 Mbps. (The Isle of Man comes in number 1 with 97 percent!)

Narrowband Connectivity – The US comes in 27 for narrowband connectivity.

The report looks at global ranking and ranking by geography. Minnesota is not listed – not once. In the past we have occasionally ranked. Minnesota Broadband buffs will know that part of the Minnesota Broadband Bill was an aspiration to be a national and world broadband leader…

It is a goal of the state that by 2015 and thereafter, the state be in:
(1) the top five states of the United States for broadband speed universally accessible to residents and businesses;
(2) the top five states for broadband access; and
(3) the top 15 when compared to countries globally for broadband penetration.

We’re not getting closer to that goal.

I think the main purpose of the map is to connect the user to information about their community. You can do a search by zip and find out what’s happening in your area. You can also track information by state, which provides a sort of nice report card on the impact of CTIP in MN. The quick take on info for MN:

• Broadband adoption percentage in MN: 70.6 percent (National average 68%)
• Communities connected via BTOP funding: 3
• Communities planning to be connected via BTOP funding: 12
• Institutions connected via BTOP funding: 1
• Institutions planning to be connected via BTOP funding: 148

Adoption progress in MN due to BTOP funding:

• 14 new public computer centers
• 143 new or improved workstations
• 121 total broadband adoption programs
• 31.2K total new household subscribers
• 22.9K total training hours delivered

• 41 percent of Americans over the age of 65 are online
• 43 percent of adults without a high school diploma are online
• 62 percent of adults making less than $30,000 are online
• 68 percent of Hispanic adults are online

This rings true with other studies we have seen, such as stats listed in the 2011 Minnesota Broadband Task Force report…

• 53% of low-income households do not subscribe
• 51% of Hispanic households do not subscribe
• 39% of rural households do not subscribe
• 68% of seniors do not subscribe
• 79% of low-income seniors do not subscribe
• 54% of low-income households with children do not subscribe

Granted these stats reflect different things. Pew is looking at Internet access in the US; the Task Force was looking at broadband access in Minnesota but they are pointing in the same direction.

Pew also looks at why people aren’t online and again the answers will sound familiar…

More recent research by the Pew Internet Project has shown that among current non-internet users, almost half (48%) say the main reason they don’t go online now is because they don’t think the internet is relevant to them—often saying they don’t want to use the internet and don’t need to use it to get the information they want or conduct the communication they want. About one in five (21%) mention price-related reasons, and a similar number cite usability issues (such as not knowing how to go online or being physically unable to). Only 6% say that a lack of access or availability is the main reason they don’t go online.

Being a broadband proponent, I have to wonder how we get these people online. Pew added a fact that I found very interesting and may help answer that question…

Most of these non-users have never used the internet before, and don’t have anyone in their household who does. About one in five (21%) say that they know enough about technology to start using the internet on their own, and only one in ten told us that they were interested in using the internet or email in the future.

Interesting to me that there are folks who have never used the Internet. It seems as if once someone spent time online the relevance would become apparently. (Of course I’m projecting.) One way to think about how to get folks online is to look at what the folks who are online are doing. Here are the top 5 activities:

• Search (92 percent)
• Email (91 percent)
• Buy a Product (71 percent)
• Use Social Networking Sites (64 percent)
• Bank Online (61 percent)

Perhaps just offering opportunities for folks to check out these tools and applications online would help. Sometimes it’s just a matter of opportunity, I know that the public computer set in the American Legion Hall in Morris MN has gotten people going online (many in the 65+ category). Sometimes guidance is the key; DEED has some (MIRC-sponsored) online training to help get people over the learning curve.

Pew also looks at why folks stay on dialup, the reasons they don’t upgrade – cost is the top issue.

In the spring of 2009, we asked adults who had dial-up internet what it would take for them to switch to a broadband connection at home. A plurality (35%) said the price would have to fall, and 17% said it would have to become available where they live. One in five (20%) said nothing would get them to change.

Perhaps some of the new programs to offer lower cost access to low-income households will help here.

It’s nice to know that we have programs in place to help boost adoption with the 22 percent of American adults who aren’t online. I think the key is getting word to the households who aren’t using it, and haven’t tried it. Many communities have had success working in senior centers. I was in a community broadband planning session in Benton County last summer – and still one of the best ideas I remember was public computers in the launderettes. Go where the people are, when they have time, give them a taste of the Internet and information on how to get more. (I know one group I have not mentioned here is non-English speakers. I’m hoping to have news on programs in other languages soon.)