Panelists say rural broadband boost could spark economy

The state could see economic benefits from expanding its rural broadband access, two legislators said, adding that they have seen constituents face limited economic opportunities because of a lack of coverage.

State Rep. Rob Swearingen, R-Rhinelander, said that’s contributing to a “brain drain” for his and other northern Wisconsin districts, where young people move south for better education and job prospects.

Swearingen declared comprehensive broadband access a “must” and something that is “clearly on the front burner” for him during the next legislative session.

State Sen. Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, said she has heard several constituents talk about how they still must commute more than two hours to work when they could just as easily telecommute if the right technology was available to them.

Shilling, who represents a portion of western Wisconsin, said she has heard about both successes and failures related to Internet access in her area. She said one toy retailer from Fountain City is running a $5 million business and employing 20 members of the community because of his ability to sell online, but several other people who commute two hours or more to work are missing out on opportunities to telecommute because broadband has not yet reached their homes.

“It’s not the haves and the have nots,” Shilling said of the people in her senate district. “It’s the haves and the need mores.”

The two legislators were part of a four-person panel discussion during Tuesday’s 2014 Broadband Planning Symposium, organized by the Public Service Commission and LinkWISCONSIN. The panel focused on how best to expand coverage as well as economic benefits rural areas might see as a result of an expansion.

Kara O’Connor, government relations director for the Wisconsin Farmers Union, told the audience that an online presence proves very beneficial to farmers looking to reach a wider array of customers.

She gave several examples of farmers who have found economic success through direct marketing to more far-flung consumers on the Internet, including one family of pork farmers in Osseo that was featured on a television program and soon after started getting calls from potential customers. O’Connor made the point that without an Internet presence, something she said farmers cannot always have in rural areas, the connection between farmer and urban consumer may never have been made.

“Any farm that is doing direct marketing is finding having Internet to be critical,” O’Connor said. “They are getting a premium and the only way they can do that is by operating their sales infrastructure on the Internet.”

Both O’Connor and Shilling see a community cooperative structure as a potential way to increase overall access and economic viability. A cooperative system would have a group of citizens come together to fund and pay for coverage from a private company. O’Connor said the idea has already had success in the United Kingdom.

But she added that any solution would likely have to be unique to the area and would require the community to come together and formulate a plan that would work specifically for them, whether it is a cooperative structure or an effort to secure state or federal grant money for expansions.

“What is striking in the investigations that I have done about what is working is that there is no one solution that works in every place,” O’Connor said. “The solutions vary according to a couple of factors: the density of population, who the providers are and the geography of the area.”

If smaller towns were to get more access, as Shilling and the other panelists were pushing for, it would make it easier for the communities to attract businesses looking to relocate, according to panelist Daniel Guild, village administrator and the chief administrative officer for the town of Weston. Guild said businesses tend to come to him with very specific checklists of needs when seeing if his town is a good fit.

“Universally every single one of the things these businesses talk about as their needs is broadband connection. They need faster speeds,” Guild said. “People need to know the service is there or they will go elsewhere.”

The panelists proposed local communities take the time to discuss what they would like to do with broadband and then tailor a plan of action specific to the community. Whether that final plan is to pursue a cooperative agreement with a private broadband supplier or to seek state or federal funding, the panelists said some course of action is a necessity.

“Tomorrow people are not going to wake up and say this broadband thing is a thing of the past,” Shilling said. “This is something that is here to stay.”

— By Jack Casey
WisBusiness.com