Slow lane for rural residents without broadband

~ Many residents near metropolitan areas can only use dial-up.

OZARK, Mo. -- Andy and Susanne Daniel run a property surveying business from their house in the Ozarks just half an hour from Springfield, the state's third largest city. But when they turn to the Internet for crucial data, they might as well be hundreds of miles away from the high-speed connections that urban dwellers take for granted.

The Daniels are among millions of people and small businesses nationwide on the other side of a digital divide between those with high-speed Internet access, mainly in cities and nearby suburbs, and vast stretches of rural America where slow dial-up modems are still the only way to go online.

The difference might seem like just a matter of inconvenience. But experts say affordable access to fast Internet connections is becoming increasingly important in a world where much of life's daily chores -- from banking and school coursework to running a business -- are moving online.

Not just fun

"Broadband access is no longer just a fun thing. It has become an essential utility no matter where you live," said Brian Dabson, associate director of the Rural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

"For rural communities in the Ozarks or anywhere else, this is a major part of infrastructure that needs to be there to keep businesses and attract new ones. The longer they go without it, the more the disadvantage grows," Dabson said.

There are no state statistics on how much of Missouri has access to high-speed Internet over the phone line by DSL or via cable, the two most affordable and common kinds of home broadband.

But according to a September 2005 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 37 percent of all American adults have high-speed Internet connections at home. Rural households lag behind at 24 percent, in part because telephone and cable companies say it's too expensive to run cable lines or set up DSL networks in areas with just a few homes per mile.

'Serious dimensions'

"The problem has serious dimensions. It's not just a matter of inconvenience. It's a question of allowing rural citizens in this country to participate fully in the American economy," said U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark.

Pryor has co-sponsored two related bills. One is an amendment to the Universal Service Act, which funds rural phone service through a levy on phone use, to direct some of that money to expanding broadband in underserved areas. Another bill, the Rural Renaissance Act, authorizes $200 million in bonds for economic development and infrastructure projects in rural communities, including broadband.

"More things are going online. All kinds of information and all kinds of opportunities are online. And if you're going to shut out rural America, it's going to cause great harm to rural America," Pryor said.

The Missouri Telecommunications Industry Association, which represents service providers in the state, says its members want to provide DSL service -- which allows them to make more revenue off the same lines -- but the cost of installing equipment in rural areas often outweighs the possible return from a small number of customers.

Expanding service

CenturyTel, a national carrier that serves many rural areas including southern Missouri, says it has expanded DSL service to 69 percent of its Missouri network, from 32 percent in 2002.

"We have been very aggressive. But at a point you have to make a business case between the cost of installing a new remote switch and can we do that based on the population we can potentially serve there," said Annmarie Sartor, external communication manager for Monroe, La.-based CenturyTel.

Andy Daniel, partner with his wife Susanne in Ozark-based Daniel Surveying & Custom Mapping, uses the Internet to download aerial photos, property line information and government records. The aerial photos are large files and take several minutes for each image to download, as opposed to a few seconds on a high-speed connection.

"The fact that we're on dial-up, it's snail-pace stuff. We grumble about that every day," Andy Daniel said.

"Really about the only option we've got is satellite," he said. But satellite Internet service can cost $600 for equipment and $60 or $70 a month for service, compared to DSL service that can cost around $20 a month with no installation fee.

Across the state line in the Arkansas Ozarks, Web site host Gary Cooley is also frustrated.

Cooley and his wife run Web sites for about 90 tourist businesses, from fishing guides to resorts, in the White River area around Mountain Home.

But he lives 1,700 feet beyond the reach of Mountain Home's DSL service and wastes an estimated 108 minutes a day uploading and downloading content that could go in a few minutes if he didn't have to use a dial-up modem.

"We live 15 minutes from the square in Mountain Home. But when I download files with pictures to edit on my computer and then upload them to the server, it takes about 20 minutes each way. If I had broadband, it would be a matter of 5 to 8 minutes total, both ways," Cooley said.

Cooley says the time he could cut with high-speed Internet would make his business more profitable.

"We are a mom and pop business. We have to earn an average of $75 a day in an eight-hour day, five-day week just to break even. If I could spend those 40 minutes of download and upload time doing something else, I could do billable work of $300 to $400 in that hour," Cooley said.