So what do you do when there isn’t an obvious business case to encourage a broadband provider to come into your area? Apparently you get creative. Thanks to Becky LaPlant for sending me a heads up on a recent article in MuniWireless (Rural communities are tackling muni projects in creative ways) that talks about ways communities have been creative.
Apparently there was a session on rural broadband deployment at the recent Muni Wireless conference where a few folks spoke from their experience:
Karl Eldwards, CEO of Excelsio, spoke about their work in Racine, Wisconsin where they originally issued a RFP but ultimately created a consortium that parsed the project according to the areas of expertise of the bidders. (You can learn more about Racine’s wireless feasibility study on the Excelsio web site.)
Jim McKenna, CEO of Redzone Wireless has worked with rural areas in Maine. His rule of thumb is that they need 3000 year-round residents with at least 40percent living in a central area to build a competitive business case to enter the area. He adds that the community must also be willing to commit financial and operational resources to the project. (Maybe that would introduce an open network framework.) Redzone offers free service for police and EMS functions.
The article reminded me of the Rural Datafication Project of the 1990s. I worked for a Regional ISP that promoted and supported Internet access (dialup at that time) to rural Minneosta. As I recall our rule of thumb was if you could get 40 subscribers we would come into your town – with the support of Rural Datafiction funds. In some communities I know we called upon local residents to support the effort by providing tech support – which back then often meant more education than actual troubleshooting.
open networks are a possibility ,we work communities as the set ups and we partner with them on the system so they have there own services.They can have numerous options with this such as voip,cellular,iptv .
In some ways I think Open Network is a strategy that should work because it’s similar to other industries, such as airlines. One company (or private-public entity) owns the airport while other companies use that infrastructure. The airlines have no industry without the airports and the airports have no industry without the airlines.
Now I don’t think that relationship is always rosy but the symbiosis does seem to work.
Thanks! Ann
now with that analysis it near makes me not want to do it as an open (now said with a laugh)Open networks can work as long as people remember what its there for.also not all open networks will have the bandwidth needed to supply everyone as there could be a bandwidth hog.
I think I’ve mentioned that I worked for Regional Network in the 90s. That organization has morphed into a commercial ISP with no regional network or nonprofit ties. But back in the beginning we provided service to many local ISPs both in the Twin Cities and rural areas.
I think that is what we did best in many ways – although we also provided service to businesses and residents. In some ways it would have been nice it that company could have morphed into an Open Network where they could have focused on bandwidth and big network issues and let smaller, more local providers focus on service to the end customer.
there isnt many providers now wanting to deal with rural and its to bad.We are going to base much of our services threwout rural as we will be looking at more than just broadband services .Someday we need sit down over a cup of coffee and talk this over as there is to much info to write here and some of it we have copyrighted.
That would be fun
I think it’s great that you will be providing service in the rural area – some of those areas really need it. And even the ones who have it could use the competition!
competition is good for everyone and it opens the eyes of the mainstays
“On March 26, 2004 President George W. Bush gave a speech setting a national and Administration goal for broadband telecommunications. He said, “This country needs a national goal for the spread of broadband technology. We ought to have universal affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007 and then we ought to make sure, as soon as possible thereafter, consumers have choices when it comes to their carrier.””
I wonder if he was thinking about excluding rural areas when he made this speech. Public and private partnerships like the ConnectKentucky program are growing broadband availability and their ultimate goal is to ensure every resident, business and community has broadband access by the end of 2007.
Check out CWA’s Speed Matters Campaign at http://www.speedmatters.org and read about successful public/private partnerships that are expanding deployment of broadband. Read their policy paper and recommendations that can stimulate investment in broadband deployment throughout the U.S.
A National Broadband Policy would be a great start – for communities who haven’t done much planning it might help provide direction. For those who have been planning it might provide support. But it sure seems at this point as though more work is being done more quickly at a more local level. However maybe these stand out communities can help pave a National policy through efforts such as Speed Matter.
I am just about to start a blog post on Rep. Rick Boucher’s (D-VA) keynote at the Broadband Policy Summit that focuses on what can be done at the national level.
Thanks! Ann