Passion Project: Rural Broadband Access
Broadband availability in Rural Areas and the Impacts to K-12 Students
It is hard to believe that in 2019 there are still families and individuals who do not have access to high speed internet, especially in rural areas. Technology is supposed to allow people to work anywhere they want to live. Unfortunately, this is not the case for people who wish to live a quiet life in rural areas of the country. In fact, a divergence has been created between those that live in high tech cities and those that live in small town America. In Virginia, there are many areas of the state that have internet speeds that are slower than some third world countries. People who live in these areas are still depending on slow connections like dial-up, DSL, and satellite internet. There’s no argument that the download speeds that these types of connections provide are less than optimal for today’s high tech websites and web applications to run on. In the K-12 education arena, where more and more schools are turning to digital resources and electronic forms of homework and class assignments, it is easy to see how problematic it is for students to complete homework and class assignments outside of school.
What is the impact in Virginia?
There is no question that Virginia has a large number of rural communities that are not wired for high speed internet connections, unlike their urban and suburban counterparts. One may ask why this problem still exists in 2019. The answer is both easy and complicated at the same time, but it all boils down to finances. Traditionally, telecom companies are responsible for wiring communities for broadband access. It makes sense for them to wire areas that are densely populated because they will have enough customers signing up for services to make a profit. In rural areas, where the population is less densely populated, telecom companies run the risk of not having enough customers to sign up for services. This could result in a financial loss for the telecom companies, since wiring costs would far outweigh revenues generated from the customer base.
In Virginia, at the beginning of Governor Northram’s term, he set a goal to have Virginia 100% wired for broadband access by 2020, which is a goal that will not be met. After further financial analysis, the new goal is to have Virginia wired at least 97%. In fact, lowering the goal from 100% to 97%, financial analysts have determined that it would cut the cost of completion in half. In the summer of 2019, the FCC stated that Virginia was already 91.7% wired, so we are now only focused on the last 5.3% to meet the goal of 97%. We have to be cautious when interpreting data from the FCC because internet service providers are not required to report who has services and at what speed those services are operating at.
Potential Solutions in Virginia
In 2019, the Virginia legislature passed two bills that could help expand broadband access to rural communities. The first bill will allow utility companies, such as Dominion Power and American Electric Power to install the necessary cabling and infrastructure required by internet service providers to deliver broadband speeds to customers. The second bill is a little more complicated, but in a nutshell, the bill would allow localities to create a “service district” which would allow the government to negotiate contracts to extend broadband into rural communities.
There are other potential short term solutions that would help narrow the digital divide in Virginia, such as installing mobile broadband devices on school busses. In rural communities, students generally spend more time on bus trips to and from school compared to urban and suburban students. Having broadband access on the busses would allow a little more time for students to complete work outside of school. Another potential short term solution would that schools could provide are mobile broadband devices that could be checked out from the school library. While these devices may not work in every rural community due to availability of cellular towers, it would certainly help some students. In fact, Montgomery County Public Schools in Virginia added $50,000 to their 2018-2019 budget to purchase MiFi devices that students can check out to complete assignments. Also, in Chesterfield County, Virginia, two students at James River High School decided to contribute to the cause by raising money to purchase MiFi devices as a part of their senior capstone project.
There is no doubt that we still have a long way to go before the majority of Virginia is wired for broadband access, but the state has made large strides toward meeting the goal. Digital resources and assignments are not a fad and are here to stay, so more work will definitely need to be done to ensure that all students have equitable access to high speed internet.
For further information, check out the following websites:
https://www.wired.com/story/rural-kids-internet-homework-gap-fcc-could-help/
https://broadbandnow.com/Virginia