Support Rural Broadband Push

Surprisingly to many city folks who take broadband access for granted, Sullivan County, like many rural parts of America, does not have universal high speed broadband access. There are hundreds of households here still relying on dial-up. Satellite internet is an option, but has technical limitations. Time Warner only runs cable along roads with a minimum number of houses, leaving many roads throughout the county without cable. Verizon has yet to upgrade its switching equipment to enable widespread DSL deployment in the lower density western areas of Sullivan. (The smaller phone company, Frontier, does offer DSL, but its service areas are limited to the far southwest and northwest parts of the county.)

Over the past few years, a number of state and federal bills subsidies to expand broadband  in underserved areas, but they've all been killed. Now it seem there is new hope. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has included $2.8 billion for wireless and wired broadband in the economy recovery package. President Obama included the statement "It means expanding broadband access to millions of Americans, so businesses can compete on a level-playing field, wherever they're located," in his Saturday radio address.

So Federal support for rural broadband expansion is finally gaining traction. (The players have stopped short of calling for 'universal broadband access', similar to the Depression-era commitment to rural electrification, but it's a start.) But there are a lot of speed bumps along the way before a Federal commitment to broadband expansion becomes law.

The next step is that the Economic Recovery Act that passed out of the house committee has to be voted on by the entire house. Then a similar plan has to be voted on by the Senate, and in an attempt to trim the costs of the package, the broadband plan could be cut.

So now's the time to write our Congressperson, Maurice Hinchey,and our two Senators, Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand (the link is only to her House website. Her Senate site isn't up yet) to encourage their support for rural broadband access and the broadband provisions of the economic recovery act. It also wouldn't hurt to email Dr. William Pammer, the director of the Sullivan County Division of Planning and Environmental Management to encourage the county to weigh in on the importance of universal rural broadband.

Comments

[Susie]

This is a great post. Thanks for sharing it. Also, on a related point, I wish there was a database of public places in Sullivan with wi-fi access. I often work from home, but sometimes "home" needs to be out of my house and I happily patronize any business with committed access.