OP-ED: Rural America Needs Better Broadband Access
By Scott Stevens, The Oregonian | I have been a broadband consultant for more than a decade. I have provided broadband policy input to both Democratic and Republican policymakers and have been involved in expanding rural broadband throughout the Pacific Northwest and United States. While as a state and country we have made substantial progress on the broadband front, we have not come far enough.
A digital divide exists in Oregon and the United States where entire communities lack access to high-speed broadband and the economic, educational, health and other benefits accompanying that access. While there is wide agreement that next-generation technology is critically important to the economic future of communities across our nation, the Federal Communications Commission’s rural broadband report found that 28.2 percent of rural Americans lack access to high-speed broadband.
I just stopped by a store in rural central Oregon and the storeowner had to get off the phone to run my credit card. This is substantial in a few ways: 1) broadband would allow simultaneous use of voice and data, 2) credit cards authorized over dial-up are prone to additional fees (on low-margin and small-ticket items, such as my snack, this could mean a loss) and 3) cellular service is inadequate to augment landline voice or provide “pseudo-broadband” through 3G services.
