Border to Border Broadband in Minnesota?

OK... it's been a year, so it's time to once again opine on the pages of the Interweb...

Today, Minnesota's Office of Broadband Development (part of DEED) released the long-awaited list of grant recipients for their $20 million Boarder to Boarder Broadband project. An impressive list of 17 projects scattered across the state of Minnesota. First, congratulations to those behind the funded projects. If you are lucky enough to live in one of the areas that will now receive high-speed broadband, welcome to the 21st century!! You'll love it! 

Next, am I disappointed that Kanabec County - and all of East Central Minnesota for that matter - was left out? Yes I am. Lots of people have been working hard for over four years to get better broadband options for our area. Another setback doesn't help, but we can learn from it and strive to present a better case next time. And I think we will. 

In the meantime, I've done a little math and present the following information... not to diminish the projects that were funded, but to illustrate just how big this problem still is in the state... and to hopefully help keep the momentum going into this legislative session as we look for continued funding of this program.

So, today's announcement helps the overall broadband conversation/discussion... as long as the legislature doesn't see this as "now we've fixed that problem." It looks to me that the projects chosen were some of the smaller $$ projects among the 40 applicants. They are nicely distributed across the state, and, yes, I know why that matters! There were a couple that were larger, but the average award is just over $1 million and most of the projects serve relatively small geographical and demographical numbers. There were 40 applications totaling $44 million in requests. I know there are lots of un and under served areas that didn't apply because the maximum $5 million amount wasn't enough to make a significant difference in their area, or because they didn't have the necessary partnerships or planning in place to make it happen. So... I hope the legislature doesn't look at this and say... "Well, looks like another $20 million should do the trick and we'll be done." That can't be further from the truth.

The latest broadband coverage information put out by the Office of Broadband (DEED) Found here: http://mn.gov/deed/images/households_terrestrial.pdf Indicates that 78.16% of Minnesota households are served by broadband that generally meets or exceeds the state goals. This is WIRED only as we know wireless has limitations and data caps that prevent it from being considered true "broadband" and limits it's affordability. Well, that leaves 21.84% of households un or under served. Minnesota has an estimated 2,107,232 households, which means there are 460,219 un or under served households in the state. The grants awarded today will serve 6,095 households which is just over 1% of the total un or under served households in the state. We've got a long ways to go! Also, if you look at that map referenced above and see the counties in red that have less than 50% of their households served... fewer than half of the funded projects are in those counties. Again, we have a long ways to go.

It's a start... and great news for the people in those communities. If you live in one of those areas, please thank your state representatives and senators. Then, if they happen to be in your area for a press conference or photo-op, or just to have a community forum, please remind them that there is still about 20% of the state's population that do not have the same opportunities. It would help us all if everyone would move that message forward.

Rural Broadband and Education - Part 4

So... how does a lack of affordable broadband access in rural areas affect a typical family? Let me give you an example (based on real people and experiences)...

This "rural" family lives only a few miles outside of a community of over 3,000 people. The family is composed of two tech-savvy parents and two high school students with four smartphones, a tablet device, and two laptop computers. Statistically, a fairly average situation. Available options and approximate costs (real rates and NOT special introductory pricing) for this family to consider include:

• Cellular data access available from two carriers, one offering 4G technology at about 8mbps download speed. Pricing is based on data usage (data caps) with an average of $10 per GB/mo with a $15 per GB overage charge. Additional monthly costs are incurred for each connected device and/or a shared hotspot device.
• Fixed wireless service offering speeds up to 5mbps down. Costs include equipment (about $300), setup (about $150), router (about $75) and a monthly charge of up to $100 for 5mbps speed (slower options are available at a lower monthly rate). 
• Satellite service offering speeds up to 12mbps down. Costs include setup fee (about $150), equipment rental (about $10 per month) a two-year service agreement and a monthly charge of $50 (with a 10GB data cap) to $130 (with a 25GB data cap).
• DSL service from the local telephone company offering a speed of up to 1.5mbps (however, in their location it is more likely to be about 768kbps) with a monthly charge of $35 month with equipment rental and a landline (more if no phone line is included)
• Dialup service is available, but doesn't even come close to the lowest definition of broadband.

Given those options, what would your choice be and what would the conversations in your household sound like? How would you feel knowing that if you lived in town 3 miles away, you would have access to 30mbps speeds with no data cap for less than $50/mo or 7mbps with no data cap for less than $40/mo?

This family does not live "in the middle of nowhere." With the options they have, they cannot reliably stream any kind of video, be it for entertainment or educational purposes, without the risk of high cost for higher data consumption or overages. They are forced to carefully monitor their Internet usage and plan around time at work and school to update apps on mobile devices, run updates on computers, and do other bandwidth intensive activities. Most options don't provide reliable use of communications technologies such as Skype or Google+ due to high latency or slow speed. All of this forces the discussion to be about what can't be done rather than focusing on what can (or needs to) be done.

Why does this matter? We make choices when we decide to live where we do, right? Consider the increasing use of laptop computers and mobile devices in schools. How useful is your computer, tablet or smartphone when it isn't connected to a high speed, Wi-Fi network? What goes through your mind when you are away from home and staying in a hotel with poor wireless access? Students access class work online through web portals and learning management systems. Homework involves accessing information on these sites and communicating with teachers and classmates online. Interactive electronic textbooks and other online learning resources are fast becoming the norm in education. Is it fair to put students without this access at an immediate disadvantage, forcing the students and teachers to figure out accommodations? Would it be fair to all students NOT to use these technologies if they make education better?

Well, this only affects a small population, right? Overall, a majority of people in this nation have access to high-speed broadband, but that doesn't mean it is affordable. Costs can vary wildly, which adds to the divide we are creating. Providers lure customers in with artificially low (loss-leading) introductory pricing and then costs rise dramatically after a year or two. Additionally, consider that nearly 75% of the population in Kanabec County (Minnesota) lives outside of the counties communities and, therefore, has very similar options to those above. There are many other parts of this country that are similar.

Broadband access is beginning to define the haves and have-nots. It is the new digital divide. We will not stop the movement of voice, video and print resources online. Soon, land-line phones, DVDs (and Blu-ray), CDs, books, magazines and newspapers will be a thing of the past just like video tapes, records, and encyclopedias. If we don't become concerned about how to make affordable high-speed access ubiquitous, we will put a whole subset of our nation's population further behind.

I'll be taking a break from writing about this topic (but keep reading for other ramblings!) until after the "Boarder to Boarder Broadband: A Call to Action" conference coming up February 4-5, 2014 in St. Paul, MN. I'm hopeful that there will be concrete action items that come out of the conference that I can write about. If you are interested in attending, find more information at:  https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?EventID=1360663 

Rural Broadband and Education - Part 2

How much bandwidth is enough?

This is a graph showing the average amount of Internet bandwidth consumed in an average week by the 42,000+ students and 2,000+ instructional and administrative staff in the 14 ECMECC member school districts that I work with.

If you look closely, you can see that we are using about 1.0gbps (that's 1000 megabits per second) during peak times. Eight years ago, we served most of these same schools with 10mbps - that's 1% of what we are using now -- and is similar to the speed of a "basic" DSL or Cable connection in a non-metro community. Today, our schools use 100 times the bandwidth they did eight years ago on a daily basis. And... the number continues to climb. So, what are students and staff doing with all this bandwidth, and what is enough?

There are people who will have us believe that kids are watching videos, playing games and engaging in social media activities while in school. I would say that they are absolutely right, students, are, indeed, doing all of those things. They would say this is a waste of time and bandwidth. I would say it is the way students learn today. Recently, a letter to the editor appeared in our local paper from a writer who believed we should eliminate computers (and presumably mobile devices - though they didn't say that specifically) from our schools since they detract from what they believe is the best way to learn. At a recent meeting I attended organized by Senator Matt Schmit, a participant suggested that people in rural areas and communities don't need "that much" bandwidth since their kids will just stream movies, play games and spend all their time on "that Facebook." Once again, I contend that this is now how people access this kind of content and communicate. It would be like going back 20 years and saying some people don't need a VCR or a phone since they will just play movies and talk.

Think back 10 years... How many places could you find in your area to rent a DVD (or buy one)? Today, how many are there? While rental stores have been replaced to some degree by Netflix (mail-order) and services like Redbox, there is no disputing that the options for renting and buying physical content (DVDs) are diminishing and will likely vanish in the not-to-distant future. The same is true for music (CDs). Now, music and video content is streamed online, and it takes a robust Internet connection to get good quality. Of course, that's entertainment. What about education?

Again, take yourself back 20 years or so and think about how you "learned." Current events information may have come from newspapers, broadcast television or local radio. Remember the trip to the public library or a bookstore to find a book about something that you wanted to learn about? Remember when you needed a manual to figure out how to replace the headlight in your car? In school, you used textbooks that may have been published as long as 10 years or more prior to your use and films that were produced in years gone by.

Today, the number of daily newspapers being published in the United States is down 25% from 20 years ago and readership numbers have fallen off exponentially. Broadcast television and radio is struggling to keep viewers and listeners and has less and less unbiased "news" content. Physical books and manuals have been replaced by ebooks and videos. Heck, most encyclopedia companies don't make encyclopedias anymore (though World Book still does!). We don't access information or learn like that anymore. All of this content has shifted online and will continue to do so.

Accessing that information takes bandwidth in larger and larger amounts. There is a seemingly endless amount of rubbish on YouTube, but it is also the first place I go now when I want to know how to fix or do something. News organizations use YouTube to post content and there are just as many educational videos as cat videos (OK, maybe almost as many as cat videos!) See the Khan Academy for just one example of educational content on YouTube. Without high-speed, affordable Internet access students and families are immediately at a disadvantage. What is enough? I don't know, but I do know that a large number of Minnesotan's (and I'm sure others in the US) don't have adequate access to learn and live in the world of Internet delivered content. People living in high-density urban areas keep getting improved Internet speeds while those in rural areas pay more for less and see little speed improvement. As I said in my previous post, it is our new digital divide and we need to find a solution.

Up Next: How increased bandwidth fundamentally changed the education environment of a school district and how it could change a families life.