Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Brita Sailer held a roundtable discussion in Park Rapids yesterday. It sounds as if broadband was a hot topic. Here are some of the specifics that came up:

• We need broadband to keep jobs and businesses. They knew of at least one business who didn’t relocate to the area due to deficient broadband.
• We need broadband to keep safe. There are a lot of cell phone dead zones, which mean the difference between life and death when there’s been an accident.
• We need broadband for education to do homework, to take tests, to allow parents to access student work and progress reports.

They also talked a bit about how FCC broadband policy will have an impact on the local phone companies (CLECs) such as Paul Bunyan. Clearly there are real concerns about the future of the universal service fund.