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Rural Broadband – An important platform
By Joe Dales
Ubiquitous Rural Broadband…. What does this term mean and what could its impacts be?
Although only three words long, this saying “Ubiquitous Rural Broadband” has a number of different meanings…
- Ubiquitous – ‘Existing or being everywhere, or in all places, at the same time; omnipresent” – although the most unfamiliar word of the 3, the definition of this word is the tightest.
- Rural – Does the definition of rural include small towns, does it include smaller cities, is it defined as everything EXCEPT large urban cities? The definition of ‘rural’ is critical in measuring the success of the internet access levels desired. The more rural the definition, the harder it will be to deliver high percent coverage.
- Broadband – This is perhaps the most elusive term – does the term Broadband include satellite coverage, wireless coverage or only wired connectivity? However, more importantly, what is ‘broad’? In most senses to the user, it depends on the application that you are using or trying to use. When you are downloading a movie from the internet, pretty much every connection speed seems slow. When you are sending an email (without an attachment!), pretty much every connection speed seems ‘broad’ enough. The real problem is that our ‘average’ need for large pipeline connections increases each year as we seek and consume more audio and video.
Many people are promoting the idea that ubiquitous rural broadband internet coverage needs to be a priority for governments – it even surfaced as an election issue in the Presidential election. However, if the goal is to reduce a real or perceived ‘technology gap’ as between the rural and the urban populations, then perhaps the approach needs to be more inclusive that just purely ‘access’ focussed.
To be sure that our Rural constituents maximize the opportunities that are presented by greater internet access, it will also require user computer training, internet training, the development of relevant broadband business applications etc. It can be argued that there is little economic value to society in developing a global leading edge broadband delivery network, if its primary use is to download games or videos for rural children.
However, if it is coupled with training, awareness building and entrepreneurial vigor it can be a strong platform for rural economic growth – why can’t the next eBay be based in rural Nebraska? This would use the technology platform, as an important economic development platform – that indeed would then justify the political platform that it has currently become.
We can aid the rural business by developing online knowledge centers that are accessible from the field or from the barn – toolsets that allow producers to communicate with each other and with leading experts. Likewise, we can use the ‘broadband’ to connect the producer in a more meaningful way to the consumer – perhaps the gap that this technology can help to bridge, is the understanding level of the urban audience as to the realities in the rural world.
Our role as agricultural businesses and agrimarketers needs to be as the developer of these soft skills and the rich internet based business applications. Let’s bring the business demand to the broadband access.
Please contact me, Joe Dales, if you have any contacts related to this article |
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