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Technology
Bringing broadband to rural communities By MARY JANE BOGLE | The Municipal
Improving internet access and digital literacy in rural communities is no small task. Multiple hurdles exist, not the least of which is a lack of infrastructure, as well as a lack of familiarity with the technology.
Ron Shields, right, vice president of The Open Resource, teaches community members how to use Chromebooks. (Photo provided)
46 THE MUNICIPAL | MARCH 2022
These are challenges that Carole Yeend, co-chair of the Rush County, Ind., Broadband Task Force, is facing head on. “When you look at how we as a society interact with one another, everything — business, education, healthcare, economic development — is, or soon will be, digital.” According to Yeend, “Access to a reliable digital infrastructure is important to everybody.” As the task force has discovered, “any community that finds itself on the wrong side of the digital divide is risking being left behind and facing a deteriorating quality of life.” The recent pandemic highlighted this fact. With more people working from home, the need for fast, reliable internet connection was readily apparent. Those without this access were quickly marginalized. Of course, Yeend admits that delivering this kind of infrastructure comes at a cost to providers. And yet, the infrastructure is just one piece of the puzzle. “You can build towers and install fiber,” said Yeend, “but if people aren’t comfortable with using the service, the payback for providers just isn’t there.” That’s why she, in partnership with co-chair Mark McCorkle, got busy building community partnerships and developing a five-year digital inclusion plan. The Rush County Broadband Task Force is the first group in the state of Indiana to do so. “We know that federal funding might be on the horizon to help bridge the digital access divide,” said Yeend, “and we are positioning Rush County to be prepared.” Part of that preparation involved partnering with Geo Partners, LLC, in Minnesota. “They’re a crowd-sourcing, data speed mapping service,” said Yeend. “They heard about our project and reached out to help.” “Our goal with Geo Partners was to create a map with dots identifying the real-time level of service. Red dots indicted a speed of 10 mbps down/1 mbps up or less. Rush County’s map looked like a measles outbreak showing how poor our service is. We were able to track internet speeds and coverage throughout the county,” said Yeend. The project caught the attention of Indiana Farm Bureau, which formed the Indiana Broadband Strategic Partnership. It has come together to fund a similar mapping project throughout the state. IBSP wants to help bring reliable broadband to the most unserved and underserved communities across the state. IBSP also includes
