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Idaho Gets Serious About Broadband
prostoalex writes "In an effort to boost the economy state of Idaho legislated tax credit for companies, who were investing in broadband Internet infrastructure. According to the latest news, the plan worked quite well, and about 150 thousand people can soon take advantage of tax-sponsored buildout. Speaking of wiring rural areas with cheap Internet access, there was an article in NY Times ($free_registration_quote), where Bill Gates admitted that in many cases building Internet in the rural area just speeded up the exodus of farmers, who were able to find a job somewhere else."
WTF is this article about? The "Power of the Interweb" is turning dirt farmers into city slickers?
How did we go from taxpayer-financed broadband to a Hyperlinked Bill Gates Quote?
I think I know what happened between Michael reading the article on NYT and adding this story to slashdot. It's called marijuana. And I'm jealous.
Not that many years ago the federal gov't undertook to guarantee to rural customers telephone service, and electricity, and in the very early days postal service. The idea is that while these services are more expensive to provide and won't develop from market pressures alone, providing them at equal prices to rural areas is both just and, in the long run, good for the country.
Would a National Internet Access Initiative be a good thing? Or is internet access is some way frivolous, other than for people who work directly in the field? (In other words, its easy to picture why Ma and Pa Kettle need mail, electricity, maybe even cable TV -- but internet?)
My tentative answer is yes, that it's really just an expansion of telephony. But how ironic that it may result in a "brain drain" from rural areas (NYT article).
In the meantime internet service providers will be available in Louisiana as soon as gators stop chewing on internet backbone or when Dukem Nukem Forever comes out whichever comes first. Seriously though that sucks that even Utah is ahead of us..
Oh well at least we got shrimp and crawfish down here so there! Take that Utah!
broad band is an amenity that many companies and individuals require. Typically those home users requiring broad band are tech savvy. Thus making them valuable capitol. Also many small businesses are now at a point where broad band is a requirement. I'm a Admin for an Architecture firm with several sites and our locations that do not have accessibility to broad band are a pin in our side. relocating the office was a valid option until Allegiance gave us a T1 for half the cost of the local Telco.
This sounds a bit like how the South Korean fiber lines that were built for use during the World Cup ended up being the infrastructure that let them install broadband access to a significant percentage of homes.
Admittedly, South Korea is a different sort of place than Idaho, but comparing it to a state is probably much better than comparing it to the whole US.
The problem is that no one really wants to pay for infrastructure unless they can see the "step n. Profit!" at the end of it. It is like roads and railways, infrastructure that allows companies to do business, but which is shared by others. I think this is a form of the 'free rider' problem, but I'm not an economist. Generally, the government gets to pay to keep the infrastructure going, and gets the money for it from taxes.
Short answer: good infrastructure allows many other activities, but individual entities are not always willing to make the investment.
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"a standard ISDN line is fine for internet access." I dunno about you's down south, but up here, 64kbps ISDN, costs more that our dsl or cable internet access. Also, with ISDN, you need another phone line, which costs even more. So personally, ISDN, isn't even an option. Here's an example of some of the pricings: Single Channel ISDN: Setup Fee: $220 Monthly Rate: $280 Dual Channel ISDN: Setup Fee: $220 Monthly Rate: $400 So, if they can get broadband cheaper, it would allow more business to get online, or get a faster connection online, which I doubt would hurt the economy ...
heyyy... did you just copy something off of NYT's site?
*pulls out the ban stick*
What, working for ADM?
It's not like you go apply for jobs at small farms. It's pretty much all family owned, or megacorp these days, not much inbetween, except for specialties like wineries, etc, which are closer to family owned, but may employ a good number of people at least seasonally.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I can tell you that I've never heard of this credit/plan/thingy before. And while I suppose the situation isn't *too* bad (I live in a town of about 5K, and afaik, everyone who wants it can get cable), I wouldn't say that we are the model of the modern major um, connected place :-) I guess I'm just bitter that after moving from Boise to Kuna (no, I didn't make that name up!), I had to downgrade from DSL to Crappy Cable. I'm serious, for the exact same amount a month, I get 1/3rd the upload speed, 3/4ths the download speed, and ten times the downtime... I never thought I'd prefer Qwest over *anything*, but at least my DSL line didn't drop out twice a week.
Oh, well. I'm probably going to get 20 responses from people living in Bliss and Sugar City (also names I didn't make up!), telling me I should praise the gods that I can even get cable. To them I say: "Move the hell out! I did!"
"I thought digital technology would eventually reverse urbanization, and so far that hasn't happened," Mr. Gates said
Hightech and IT companies tend to stick together in certain areas for a reason. If you want a job in these industries, you better move away from the countryside since mentioned industries won't move to a small town in the countryside were they can't find enough skilled workers. I guess Bill thought that we all should be teleworkers, but most IT jobs require personal interaction, so you're still dependent on being close to the clients.
There are other reasons on why people wants to leave the countryside. It's not all about jobs, but the lifestyle you want. There are for instance more choices (eg. entertainment, restaurants) in urban areas. Thinking that the people leave because they've got the ability to search jobs is to make this issue a little bit too simple. This trend of urbanization is nothing new... and it will continue, with or without wired towns in the countryside.
...appears later in the article
Performance is important in a rural area, he said, especially as the potential and need for telemedicine and distance education applications increases.
I used to work for a company that builds and installs distance education networks in rural areas. With the infrastructure they're referring to in the article, much of the cost of such networks is already taken care of. Why is distance education so important in rural Idaho? Because local schools with small numbers of students can't afford the staff required to teach the state mandated curriculum, much less elective courses such as language or (gasp) high school computer science. Without the ability to share teaching staff across distance education networks, many of the local schools would have to close and the kids would be bused long distances on a daily basis.
So, yeah, it's nice that farmers get to surf the web. But the real benefit is elsewhere.
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So sound again
--ebtg
I was amused to read Bill Gate's comments on computers and internet access halting the rural exodus by 1995. Having been born and raised on a large successful farm, I can tell you that yes, technology and computers are essential tools (even our tractors have computers in them that monitor and control every aspect of the engine and transmission, etc). But that's all they are. The tools need to be wielded better by farmers through education and better management.
There are several problems with farming in America that no broadband or computer is going to fix. (And thus the exodus will continue)
1. Farming is too innefficient. The days of small family farms under 640 acres are gone. You just can't do it any more. Sorry.
2. Farmers don't know how to manage their farms like a business. Even a family farm is a business.
3. Government subsidies eliminate incentives to improve these things and compete with the rest of the world. (Although Europe is the worst offender for subsidies.) Let's get rid of them.
4. Farmers are not diversivied enough. Thus my farm has gone from traditional wheat and grains to canola, peas, alfalfa, and flax. Also we use modern no-till techniques for increasing yeild without having to work the land. (stirring the soil can be counter-productive.)
My father has pioneered the use of computers in Agriculture as planning and managing tools (like a normal business, fancy that) since the IBM PC in 1981. The internet doesn't yet play a significant role in marketing, however, but it is a good tool for managing the books (online banking), researching and sharing ideas for innovation and so forth.
So things like rural broadband are nice, but if you don't fix the underlying problem, you'll soon have no rural population left and everybody will then wonder where their food is.
Michael