Don't need broadband? Think again as providers look to educate consumers

By Samantha Bookman | Fierce Telecom

Published: October 28, 2011

A couple of years ago I was having dinner with my uncle during a stopover in San Francisco. The conversation, as it is wont to do, turned eventually to the Internet, specifically to Facebook, which my uncle had joined but was not posting to very much. Why? I asked.

"Because it takes too long to load," he replied. "I have dialup."

I found this pretty amazing, considering he lives close enough to the city to get high-speed Internet, so I quizzed him a bit more about his reasons for staying with a dialup service. He had fairly sound ones: the price was very affordable; he wasn't locked into a service contract--important because his carpentry work often took him out of town for weeks at a time; the service was reliable; and he didn't see much use for Internet access beyond checking his email.

That conversation took place just as the Obama administration's broadband stimulus effort was gearing up, an initiative that now is in full swing, with broadband rolling out--at various speeds--well beyond urban areas and into rural ones. So I was very interested to see the results of a recent study that found that not only did 28 percent of Minnesota residents not subscribe to a broadband service, a significant portion of them weren't that interested in subscribing: 29 percent of those without broadband said there wasn't enough Internet content worth viewing.

Only 8 percent of the survey participants said that they didn't have access to broadband, so in the parts of Minnesota surveyed, which included rural areas, broadband access was not the biggest issue.

Minnesota wasn't the only state surveyed as part of an effort by Connected Nation. In South Carolina--where a battle for municipal broadband regulation was fought recently--around 43 percent of residents do not subscribe to broadband. Again, only 8 percent said broadband was not available to them.

Read more.

Grand Marais Wants Broadband to Open Doors but Not Wreck the Allure of Remoteness

by Jennifer Vogel, Minnesota Public Radio

Housed in a converted Baptist church in Grand Marais, Cook County Higher Education isn't your typical community college.

It's not accredited, first of all, nor does it have a staff of teachers or even many classrooms. In fact, most of its classes are taught somewhere else, Bemidji State University, for example, or Hibbing Community College. Students take the classes via Skype on the Internet or interactive television...

...According to a recent report by ConnectMinnesota, fewer than half the households in Cook County have access to internet download speeds of at least 3 megabits per second (discounting mobile wireless). This places Cook County third from the bottom among Minnesota's 87 counties when it comes to connectivity...

Read more from Grand Marais Wants Broadband to Open Doors but Not Wreck the Allure of Remoteness

Telecommuting Levels the Field For Some Rural Minnesotans

by Jennifer Vogel, Minnesota Public Radio

Rose Buer commutes to her job as a software engineer in Bloomington every morning.

But she doesn't drive from Minneapolis or St. Paul or another suburb. She makes the short trek from her 10-acre farm to a small office in Dawson, next to a hair salon and the Dawson Sentinel, the newspaper that serves the town of 1,300 people in western Minnesota...

...A recent study by Connect Minnesota and the Minnesota Broadband Task Force found that 37 percent of Minnesotans work from home at least occasionally; twenty percent telework on a regular basis. What's more, the report says, "Three out of ten Minnesota adults who are not currently in the workforce say they would work if empowered to do so through teleworking. This includes 17% of retirees, nearly three out of five unemployed adults, and almost one-third of homemakers."...

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Minn. still has miles to go on rural broadband access

By Nicole Norfleet/ Minneapolis Star-Tribune

As Minnesota works toward getting all residents high-speed Internet access, it has to bridge the urban-rural divide, a report says

...What's going on in rural communities could make the difference in whether the state will be able to meet its goal of ensuring that all Minnesotans have access to high-speed Internet in the next five years.

A December report showed the state still has work to do if it wants to meet its goals, which include access to high-speed broadband for every home and business by 2015 and for Minnesota to be among the top five states for broadband speed...

Read Minn. still has miles to go on rural broadband access

Being at the table

by Karin L. Nauber/Independent News Herald

If you are not at the table, you are on the menu. We are not at the table. ~Jim Lunemann

Is there a need for broadband or high speed Internet outside of our rural small towns and cities? Is there a need for high speed access in the country?

Link to Independent News Herald article

Connect Minnesota gets $2.7 million broadband grant

by Jim Hammerand/Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal :

Minnesota broadband got a $2.7 million boost from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Read more: Connect Minnesota gets $2.7 million broadband grant - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal

ESRI's BroadbandStat Puts Interactive Maps Online

From an ESRI press release:

Four States Inaugurate Maps Showing Detailed Broadband Coverage

Redlands, California—The states of Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, and South Carolina are now providing easy-to-use maps that show in detail each state's broadband coverage. The interactive, online maps are made possible by BroadbandStat, an application based on ESRI geographic information system (GIS) technology, and will help the states plan and improve high-speed Internet access for their residents and businesses.

Press Release link

Connected Nation Launches New App for Broadband Mapping in Four States

From Broadband For America's blog:

Connected Nation announced a multi-state launch of a new interactive broadband mapping application in Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada and South Carolina. The maps, which are now accessible through the Connect Michigan www.connectmi.org; Connect Minnesota www.connectmn.org; Connect Nevada www.connectnv; and Connect South Carolina www.connectsc.org websites give local residents a place to find providers at their address, check their current Internet speeds, request broadband service in their area and provide feedback on the initiatives.

Link to story

Minn. gets $1.7 million for broadband initiatives

By The Associated Press (St. Paul Bureau)

ST. PAUL, Minn.--Minnesota is getting $1.7 million from the federal stimulus to map broadband Internet access and plan for service improvements.

Minnesota gets $1.5M in stimulus cash for broadband mapping

by Chris Newmarker/Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal

The federal government will spend $1.5 million in economic stimulus cash to map out access to broadband services in Minnesota, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration said Tuesday.

Link to article here.