Distressed Rural Communities

brewerbob · Mar 21, 2002

Our county has about 7500 residents. The county seat is the largest town, and has about 1500 of those residents. We are about 3 hours from the nearest airport, and very remote. We have a problem in that the only private industry here is logging and gold mining. (See a problem there?) Only 17% of the land in the county is in private hands, the rest being national forest, or other government holdings. The land is mountainous and we get some tourism, hunting and fishing, but we're slipping into financial ruin. The largest town is set to run out of money in July of this year. The only solution I see is for the county to try to attract people who would like to work from home over the internet. My wife does this while I'm on my Deere. The local Public Utility District has a need to upgrade their internet connection, and has graciously offered to set up a wireless internet system county wide. They estimate this could be done for approximately $250K and they would then sell this high speed access to the local ISPs. This way, we could hope to attract people who would would bring their jobs with them, to enjoy our area and bring some tax base. There are some people living here who already do just that. The problem is the nay sayers who are afraid their electric bills will be increased (the Public Utility District is the purveyor of electric power), some "greenies" who don't want the transmission towers, and, I suppose, people who are against anything new. I'm writing a letter to the editor of the local paper to counter what I understand is a very negative letter that will appear in today's paper. My understanding of Washington law is that it would be illegal for the PUD to transfer losses from the internet project to the electrical rate payers. I wonder if any of you have any thoughts about this. I know there are a lot of smart people on this board.
Bob

MossRoad · Mar 21, 2002

Ah, small town life... when you know what is going to be in the paper before it is printed.

Hate to sound negative, but I doubt that they can set up high speed wireless internet access for an entire county for 250K. The cost of one good sized tower would wipe out the budget. It only becomes prosperous in areas of high concentration of customers, such as cities.

Just for example, I recently helped a friend set up a network facility that had approximately 750 connections, hard wired to a central closet. We spent over 30K and that is just in one building. That did not include the cost of network cards for computers or labor! Just network switches, wire and wall jacks.

Someone should go over those numbers again.

Hope this helps.

JATO_RaT · Mar 22, 2002

Moss, your words sound familiar. Not to far from here, a small town has no electricity, no phones and the wireless reception is minimal at best. I have to laugh because it seems that folks in the town are very upset at the utility companies for not bringing power or telephone service to the little town. Upset enough that the group of them feel that suing them is something to consider. Forget that no utility company could make a dime bringing in the poles etc., or that every single person there moved there knowing precisely what they were getting into. On the other hand, I would like to think that communications is still in its infancy and the next 10 years holds a lot of promise for everyone. Rat...

JoeR · Mar 22, 2002

When the Tennessee Valley Authority was first formed, the U.S. Government funded a great deal of it. Part of the deal was to require the utility company to provide power to rural communities. If this was not done, then we probably wouldn't have power outside the city limits of any town. The Government gives a great deal of funding and bonds to Public Utilities, but they are required to make reasonable attempt to provide service to rural areas.

The FCC provides spectrum to wireless carriers, but the wireless carriers have a 5-10 year time frame in which they MUST have a signal within their MSA or RSA to fill their licensed contour. The FCC also makes provisions to phone carriers that they MUST have some sort of rural service in order to obtain their license. Unfortunately, some phone companies will pay the $10,000 per month fine instead of building infrastructure to the rural area. The 10K fine is sometimes cheaper than building the network.

Overall, the Government has mandated rural service, but the local carrier or utility would rather pay the fine than build the infrastructure. You can always contact the Public Service Commission for your state. Unfortunately, if the power company is owned by a municipality, then you won't get far...

Joe R.

MDNY · Mar 22, 2002

I guess it's time to get the fines updated, but then again big business will not allow the gov't to change those. After all they are planning on suing over the campaign finance reform bill being passed.

Politicians alwasy find a loophole, that's why they make them.

Anonymous Poster · Mar 22, 2002

Rural Electrification Administration telephone and data service regulations were updated in 1996. During the hearing phase, providers from cable, satellite and wireline were all assuring the Congress hi speed service would be available to every inch of America by 2001.
The carriers all got what they wanted from Congress, and the country folk they promised to serve got screwed. REA still exists, and companys like Citizen's Utility are taking full advantage of REA funding today. I'm currently researching exactly how Citizens has used a small 3 exchange company, misused is a better term, to finance the takeover of a major city phone company that surrounds the small company.
REA companys get away with murder because they are allowed to self certify every 10 years that they are playing by the rules, and nobody at the FCC audits the figures.
There may well be REA money available to bring hi speed to your community. Look at alternitives, such as establishing your own cable TV co op, with hi speed access and do it with REA funding.