State ranks 49th in funds from telecom program

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri ranks only slightly ahead of last-place Arkansas in its participation of a federal funding program to help fund telecommunication improvements in rural schools, libraries and healthcare facilities.

Six years ago Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, designed to deregulate the telecom industry and promote competition in a market that had operated as a monopoly in the past. The program, known as the "E-rate," created a way to deliver millions of dollars in discounts on advanced telecom services to rural educational and healthcare institutions.

Surveys taken by a number of institutions in Missouri show that despite the intent of the program, the average funding distribution to the state's 49 largely rural counties is only 3 cents per capita. Some outstate institutions have received as much as $50.40 per capita to promote telecom availability.

In contrast, top-ranking Arizona, with 11 largely rural counties among its total of 15, has a minimum per capita funding amount totaling $7, with maximum funding in rural counties reaching $64.77 per capita. Arkansas, with 31 extremely rural counties, has a minimum per capita distribution rate of 2 cents and a maximum distribution of $56.16 per capita.

Health and education

Residents of rural Missouri frequently raise concerns about two quality-of-life issues: access to first-rate healthcare and quality education. Remoteness, distance and low population density have often caused the standard of education and healthcare available in rural areas to fall short of the standard in urban areas. And these outstate regions have been slow to gain access to new technological development in these services.

Recent advances in telecommunications can help address these rural concerns.

In particular, advanced telecom services can help rural areas attract and retain new residents who might otherwise dismiss smaller communities due to concerns about adequate learning resources. One of the primary goals of the E-rate was to help rural Americans gain access to advanced education and health services. The mechanism for doing this is a set of price discounts intended to make the services, and needed equipment, more affordable. The individual school or library only pays part of the actual price, while the rest is paid from a government fund.

The program offers discounts ranging from 20 to 90 percent, depending on the area and its location. Discounts can be applied to telecom services (such as high-speed lines like T-1 lines) and to Internet access, but not to content and internal connections (inside wiring and the creation of connecting lines).