Chris Muegge, right, talks about his experiences coming home to work on his family’s rural southeast Hancock County farm while maintaining his consulting job in animal nutrition that has clients as far away at Costa Rica. Sitting with him for the discussion on how fiber optic connectivity has made his dual roles possible are, from left, Brendan Carr, a member of the Federal Communications Commission; Indiana Sen. Todd Young; Michael Burrow, CEO of NineStar Connect, Muegge’s local electric and telecom cooperative that installed the fiber; and his mother, Linda, who also spoke about the benefits high-speed broadband has brought to their farm and to the Hancock County community at large.
Broadband in Indiana
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there that we can access,” Chris Muegge told Young and Carr when it comes to improving most any aspect of agriculture and agribusiness. “It’s just having the ability to access it.” Young and Carr began the day at the Hancock Wellness Center in things — live out of state and this or that
McCordsville with a demonstration of
— and they’ve all chosen to be here.”
how high-speed fiber is essential in
Sitting across the kitchen table as
another field of rural health and wellness.
the Muegges talked about what high-
This one had nothing to do with
speed fiber has meant to the family
livestock; rather, it has everything to do
and their farm on this particular day in
with the lives of rural residents.
May were Indiana Sen. Todd Young and
Dr. Michael Fletcher, chief medical
Brendan Carr, a member of the Federal
officer at Hancock Regional Hospital,
Communications Commission. Joining
demonstrated how he and a neurologist
them was Michael Burrow, CEO of
at the Greenfield-based hospital, could
NineStar Connect.
link up in real time using GoToMeeting
The Muegge farm was a stop for Young and Carr as they toured Indiana early last month to see firsthand how
available. From McCordsville, Fletcher was able to discuss CT scan results and
and how Washington, D.C., can ensure
treatment options. Though they were
rural Hoosiers receive a fair share when
less than 20 miles from one another in
it comes to the investment in broadband
this case, telemedicine via high-speed
infrastructure and connectivity.
internet allows the same virtual faceto-face discussions between a family
day, the senator and the commissioner
physician and a medical specialist
were told that the advances in
looking at the same test results at the
technology in agriculture, medicine
same time even when they may be
and workforce development do no good
hundreds or thousands of miles apart.
unless everyday Hoosiers — including
That’s critical in the medically under-
rural Hoosiers — are able to access that
served rural areas that have only become
technology via the internet. The day-
more isolated from quality health care
long trip also included stops at Ivy Tech
even as their population ages.
in Indianapolis and Purdue University in
electric cooperatives in Indiana now offer or are about to offer high-speed internet services to their consumers.
software and the fiber NineStar made
technology is changing the landscape —
All along the “connectivity tour” that
5
Further, Fletcher said the virtual
59
out of Indiana’s 92 counties are expecting to see population losses over the next 35 years.
West Lafayette. “There’s a lot of technology out
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