Rural Demand Can Drive and Sustain Broadband Projects, Say Panelists
Rural America hungers enough for high speed broadband to make deployment economically feasible despite recent polls that say otherwise, said panelists at a Benton Foundation luncheon Thursday. “This is about livelihood,” said Tim Nulty, project director of the East Central Vermont Community Fiber-Optic Network. Nulty, who has overseen fiber network construction in 22 rural Vermont townships, said none of the necessary referenda had less than 98 percent support and eight had unanimous support.
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RUS is required to give out at least 75 percent of its $2.5 billion in broadband stimulus funds to rural areas, though some have said that all of the funds will go towards rural projects.
Providing universal service “isn’t very hard,” despite skeptics who say rural networks are not sustainable, said Nulty. Using fiber can also help make infrastructure “future-proof.”
Rural areas are hungry for broadband because they are “anxious for vitalizing projects,” said Gary Evans, CEO at Hiawatha Broadband, a rural Minnesota provider. In one Minnesota town, 60 percent signed up for broadband service even before the company began installing the system, he said.
Having speeds of 100 Mbps is necessary to support high definition applications, said Bill Shrier, chief technology officer of Seattle. Because fiber is the only platform that can handle such speeds and adjustments, any area without fiber is unserved, he said.
Jaguar Communications, another rural Minnesota provider, spent its first million dollars on installing fiber and serving 3,000 customers, but is now self-sustaining, said Donny Smith, Jaguar’s CEO. Jaguar now has a fiber ring of about 600 miles and is in the process of applying for its third RUS loan to fund some of its projects and has paid the past loans off in full, he said.