Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Bringing Broadband To Rural America

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 00:04:56 -0400

Bringing Broadband To Rural America
By Yuki Noguchi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 10, 2003; Page E05

Kelly Shaw is trying to create a high-tech community amid the gently rolling
hills of tobacco fields and furniture plants in the patch of southern
Virginia where he grew up.

About a year ago, Shaw started Pure Internet Inc., a South Boston, Va., firm
that sells dial-up and high-speed wireless Internet service. So far, among
Halifax County's 37,000 residents, Pure Internet has about 40 takers for its
high-speed service, plus 1,000 dial-up customers.

But the business isn't profitable yet. It's hard to manage the cash flow,
because it costs $600 to set up a single wireless customer -- an investment
that takes 10 months for Shaw to pay off, he said.

At a wireless industry conference in Washington this week, policymakers are
talking about how to encourage more Pure Internets in rural America, where
an estimated 10 to 30 percent of the residents don't have high-speed
Internet service, whether a consumer cable connection, digital subscriber
line or fiber-optic line, industry experts say.

The Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service
(http://www.usda.gov/rus/) is sponsoring $1.45 billion in low-interest loans
in its first major loan program for broadband providers. The first loans
will be granted this summer, and Shaw said he might apply.

"High-speed broadband in areas of 20,000 population or less is absolutely
essential if those rural communities are going to remain viable in the next
decade," said Hilda Gay Legg, administrator of the Rural Utilities Service,
who is scheduled as a keynote speaker today at the Wireless Communications
Association International's (http://www.wcai.com/index.html) conference at
the Washington Convention Center. "The challenge is always: How are you
going to make a good business case? How do you get enough revenue to pay
back those loans?"

The government is currently reviewing 29 applications to make sure they have
a viable business case, she said. The deadline for applications is July 31.

The Rural Broadband Coalition, (http://www.ruralbroadbandcoalition.net/) an
Alexandria-based advocacy group, is pushing for more government loans to
help its members shoulder the high cost of capital, said Damian Kunko, the
group's chief executive. Internet connections are particularly important for
rural areas, because they increase access to remote health care and distance
learning, he said.

"Capital funding is a huge issue. It's an issue for the overall telecom
industry," but the government is getting involved in funding, which means
new opportunities for small entrepreneurs in low-population areas, said
Gregory L. Rohde, a former director at the National Telecommunications and
Information Administration and a funding consultant for telecom firms.

Rural area populations have lower incomes, which means $40 a month for any
kind of high-speed Internet service is often too costly, said Shirley A.
Bloomfield, vice president of government affairs for the National
Telecommunications Cooperative Association, which represents 600 independent
phone operators.

The NTCA's membership offers high-speed service in 80 percent of the areas
it serves, but only 7 percent of customers choose to buy it, primarily
because of the cost, she said.

Players in the wireless industry believe that new wireless technology could
solve the cost problem, since its capital costs are just a fraction of those
of fiber-optic options.

"We've got to get enough competition in the market" to drive some of those
costs down, and wireless is a promising, lower-cost way to build
infrastructure in remote areas, said Ronald J. Resnik, general manager of
Intel Corp. and a board member of the WCA, who spoke at the conference
yesterday.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35374-2003Jul9.html

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Free shipping on all inkjet cartridge & refill kit orders to US & Canada.
We have your brand: HP, Epson, Lexmark, Canon & more.
http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5510
http://us.click.yahoo.com/kP..SB/49VGAA/ySSFAA/61FxlB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/