Today Dave Peters at MPR’s Ground Level looks at wireless in rural areas. He asked folks on different sides of the issues about the role that wireless does and potential could play in rural areas. Here’s a Readers Digest version…

Verizon – plans to provide service…

Verizon earlier this month announced its HomeFusion product, offering rural wireless Internet access faster than many urban residents have today and riding on the company’s expanding 4G network. You stick a bucket-sized antenna on the side of your house and pay $60 a month and, presto, you allegedly get downloads speeds of up to 12 megabits per second and upload speeds up to five megabits per second. That’s faster than a lot of people get in the Twin Cities.

I just heard someone talk about using Verizon’s MiFi as an alternative to her not-so-great broadband in a suburb of the Twin Cities. I’m a fan of MiFi – but as I learned on a recent road trip, you can hit the data caps pretty quickly. I wouldn’t want to worry about that each month. And as MVTV Wireless points out in the story, Versizon may not be serving the smaller towns (or space between towns) any time soon.

MVTV Wireless (a local wireless provider) is providing wireless service to rural homes now…

MVTV is upgrading its service steadily, now covering almost 20,000 square miles. It’s residential service offers speeds of 2.5 megabits but the non-profit company is preparing for 4G and faster service. He says he’s adding about 100 customers a month.

But he’s not really trying to compete with wired services. “We want to go where people aren’t,” he said. Most of his customers are rural and are switching from satellite service or dial-up service or getting Internet access for the first time. “Wireless is just one piece of the whole puzzle,” he said, but he cautioned people not to rule out the long-term potential of wireless speeds.

Some folks feel that wireless is a Band-Aid that sort of distracts consumers and prohibits providers from investing in fiber…

“Most Americans don’t know what they’re missing” with slower speeds and data caps, said Christopher Mitchell, who follows telecommunications issues for theInstitute for Local Self-Reliance and who is a big proponent of community-built fiber projects. …

Still, Mitchell notes how wireless service can make the economics more difficult for those pushing for high-speed fiber networks.

And yet others feel there is room for both…

“Most tech futurists would say we need them both” said Bill Coleman, who runs the broadband and economic development consulting firm Community Technology Advisors. Simply put, for some people at least, wireless works, he said.