It’s time
John Schlageck
Saturday, July 25, 2009
In rural Kansas, it’s difficult to keep up. This is especially true of high-speed Internet service.
While the rest of the world operates in blink-of-the-eye communications, many areas of rural Kansas are still stuck with dial up. Dial-up communication can be as slow as snail-mail and a thousand times more frustrating.
Dial-up is Jim and Brenda Dooley’s only access to the Internet on their Jewell County farm in north-central Kansas. Their story is the same as thousands of other rural inhabitants across the Sunflower State.
The Dooley’s time on the Internet is limited because it takes forever to download. As a result they are behind the eight ball in obtaining necessary marketing and other farm-related information in today’s rapidly changing agricultural world.
Like the Dooleys, Greenwood County rancher Matt Perrier finds himself in a similar situation. Perrier has given up trying to blog because it takes him an hour-and-a-half before he can connect. Then his dial-up crashes.
“When I need to send an advertisement or photos to help market our bulls or cattle, it’s a roll of the dice to get that sent to where it needs to go,” Perrier says. “And even if we do, sometimes it takes as long as five hours to get it out.”
With on-line networking rapidly becoming the most effective way to communicate and conduct business, rural Kansans need high-speed Internet service and they need it now. Communication via Internet is no longer a luxury. Bringing broadband access to all rural areas could provide economic and quality of life opportunities for rural Kansans.
Reliable access to rural broad banding can also play a significant role in education, healthcare and access to new markets for agriculture and business. Rural education is increasingly dependent on broadband access. Healthcare providers are going to be even more dependent on it now that our government is increasingly mandating health information while using technology.
Rural business owners, whether they’re farmers and ranchers or rural small businessmen, are increasingly being required to interact with government through the Internet.
Without fast, convenient and affordable Internet service an entire segment of this nation’s people are being left behind. It’s increasingly important for rural Kansas communities to be wired.
“When it comes to the future viability of rural life in Kansas, I can’t think of a more important area of work,” says Steve Baccus, an Ottawa County grain farmer who serves as president of Kansas Farm Bureau. “In nearly every respect, bringing broadband Internet service to rural areas of Kansas is akin to rural electrification. That technology changed life on the farm and broadband access will do the same thing.”
A new public-private collaborative effort led by Kansas Farm Bureau will provide a vital first step by identifying those communities and households not currently served. This mapping project will work toward taking full advantage of broadband infrastructure grant dollars recently approved by Congress in the federal economic stimulus package.
KFB and the Information Network of Kansas will also provide some of the mapping funds. Connected Nation, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit organization working to expand access and use of broadband Internet, has already begun mapping in Kansas.
Service providers began applying for stimulus money July 14. The time frame for increasing broadband access will depend on the public’s response, how fast the money flows from the stimulus package and how quickly the providers build and service the much-needed networks.
• John Schlageck is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.
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