IDAHO RURALIST E-bulletin from Idaho Rural Partnership

News from the Idaho Rural Partnership: June 2019

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Welcome to IRP's e-bulletin, The Idaho Ruralist. Thanks to Battelle Energy Alliance, Operator of Idaho National Laboratory for their generous support of this publication.

We hope you find The Idaho Ruralist of value, wherever you live and work.

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In This Issue:

Broadband as Key Infrastructure
Barriers to increasing Broadband Access
Findings From IRP's Broadband Working Group
Community Review Program Running on all Cylinders
IRP and the Western Community Assessment Network
IRP Welcomes New Board Members

Beyond Netflix - Why Broadband is Key to Good Paying Jobs in Rural Communities

Want to encourage businesses to move to and stay in rural areas? Increase their broadband options. While this alone won’t provide a boom in economic development in every rural area, the disparity between urban and rural broadband access is undeniable. What can be done about it and how can we help?

What is Broadband?

Broadband speed was defined in 2015 as a minimum of 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) for content download and 3 Mbps for content upload. In the FCC’s 2018 report, 97.9% of Americans in urban areas had access to both fixed and mobile broadband at these minimums, but only 68.6% of Americans in rural areas. Want to know the speed of your current internet service? Several websites offer free and easy real-time tests that document your current speeds. One example is Speedtest.

The Digital Divide

The difference in access to broadband in urban and rural areas is often described as “the digital divide”. It is illustrated by the following national data:

24 million of Americans do not have access to broadband, with 19 million of those living in rural areas. This equates to 31% of urban households, 35% of Americans on Tribal lands and just 2% of Americans in urban areas.
80% of urban and 76% of suburban residents report using the internet daily, while just 58% of rural residents do so.

(Source: Center for Rural Affairs, 2018)

Here in Idaho, national reports consistently place us at or near the bottom of states ranked by average download speed. Currently, nearly 110,000 Idahoans do not have any wired internet providers where they live. Another 254,000 have access to only one internet provider.

Broadband - Why it matters

Numerous sources document the economic importance of increasing broadband access in rural areas. Communities and regions without modern internet connections have more difficulty attracting businesses and supporting the expansion of existing ones. This is particularly true for businesses that require reliable, high-speed data transmission, including, for example, agricultural operations, financial institutions, and manufacturers. Broadband is also key to attracting teleworkers who wish to live in a rural area, but work as an employee or contractor for an employer based elsewhere. Businesses involved in e-commerce are drawn to communities with high quality internet service.

Public and private services such as health care, public safety, and education increasingly require speeds provided by broadband. There’s no question that maintaining and improving such services is key to retaining and attracting residents and businesses to rural communities.

Here are a few examples that further illustrate the link between broadband access and rural prosperity. In summary, it is becoming a basic infrastructure comparable to electricity, roads, and water.

Conduit for fiber optic cable waiting to be installed in Stanley, ID.

University researchers in Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Texas have found rural counties with more households connected to broadband had higher incomes and lower unemployment than those with fewer.
One study indicated increasing broadband by 10 percentage points translates to an estimated 1% increase in gross domestic product.
Approximately 80 new jobs are created for every additional 1,000 broadband users.
On average, increasing residential broadband speeds by 4 Mbps raises household income by $2,100 per year.
One study showed for every 1% increase in broadband access, a state’s employment is projected to increase 0.2 to 0.3 % per year. This investment is especially effective in states that have a large rural population.

(Sources: Center for Rural Affairs, 2018; Wall Street Journal, 2017.)

Barriers to Increasing Broadband Access

Here are a few of the barriers that make increasing rural broadband access challenging:

Cost: Cost includes the expense of physically expanding the infrastructure and the cost of service paid by businesses and residents. Multiple studies show cost is the biggest reason residents give for not using broadband if it’s available to them.

Geography and population density: In short, too few customers are spread out over too great a distance. Consequently, rural internet providers say they can’t invest in door-to-door service with such a limited number of customers.

Data Reliability: Federal funding was made available to all 50 states in 2009 to gather and verify data regarding the availability, speed, and location of broadband services. Nationally, maintenance of this data and the related maps ended in 2015. Once federal funding and support ended, states like Idaho no longer had current data on which to base policy and funding decisions. In other words, the question of “who has broadband and where?" is now difficult to answer with confidence. In addition, ongoing reporting by internet service providers required by the Federal Communications Commission is problematic and arguably inaccurate largely because it is based on Census tracts. The resulting data frequently overestimates broadband access, especially in the rural West, where individual Census tracts can be larger than some northeastern states.

Recent Formation of Idaho Broadband Task Force

In late May 2019, Governor Brad Little signed an executive order establishing the Idaho Broadband Task Force to improve connectivity and broadband infrastructure across Idaho. Governor Little directed the Task Force to come up with recommendations by November 2019 on ways the state can assist in furthering Idaho’s connectivity and speeds. The group will focus its efforts on mapping Idaho’s existing services and identifying gaps in Idaho’s broadband infrastructure. The mapping effort is the first step in developing a statewide broadband plan. Several board members of the IRP, including Task Force Chair Tom Kealey, Director of the Idaho Department of Commerce, are on the Task Force, and IRP stands ready to support the Task Force any way we can.

Our hope is Future broadband planning and implementation efforts should emphasize both personal internet use at home and commercial use by businesses and government services.

In 1935 only 10% of rural American had electricity. President Franklin D. Roosevelt pledged to expand service across the country’s rural areas. Twenty years later, electrification had reached more than 90% of rural America. If we choose to, we can address the task of increasing broadband access with a similar mindset.

LinkIDAHO Project and the Idaho Rural Partnership Broadband Working Group

Coordinated by the Idaho Rural Partnership, the 2011-2013 LinkIDAHO project used federal funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to document the current state of broadband availability in Idaho and to point the way forward for better broadband development and use throughout the state.

The following initiatives and actions were identified by the LinkIDAHO effort and are described in detail in “Idaho Broadband Framework: Expanding Statewide Broadband Development and Use” (October 11, 2012). This document is available from the Idaho Rural Partnership.

Reduce barriers to broadband investment and expansion
Facilitate diverse statewide partnerships and collaborations to advance broadband
Promote awareness of shared opportunities among consumers, government, and providers
Reduce barriers to broadband adoption
Support local-based initiatives

In summer 2017, IRP convened 24 broadband stakeholders to revisit and further develop the strategies identified through the LinkIDAHO project. This more recent effort resulted in the completion of a 7-page report titled “A New Broadband Model” (November 2017). This document is also available from the Idaho Rural Partnership. The IRP Working Group agreed on the long-term goal of getting fiber optic-based service to every Idaho address. To help achieve this goal, the group called for the development of new funding models that:

(1) enable the separation of the underlying wired or wireless broadband infrastructure from digital services (e.g. internet, phone, etc.) and

(2) open up broadband infrastructure investment opportunities to anyone, all the way down to the consumer, business, or property owner.

IRP and the Western Community Assessment Network (WeCan)

WeCan is a three-year collaborative project to evaluate and share lessons learned from community reviews being conducted in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. It is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded to University of Idaho Extension, who recently hosted (with IRP) an annual gathering of the participating organizations at which successes and opportunities for improvement were shared and developed. Ultimately, the collaboration will result in the documentation of ripple effects (or outcomes) being produced by community review and the development of best practices guide intended to increase outcomes in the future.

Go to Community Review for more information about the Western Community Assessment Network.

Community Review Program Running on all Cylinders

Jon Barrett during Phase I of the Blackfoot Community Review. Photo courtesy of Bingham County Chronicle.

IRP’s Community Review Program continues to support community engagement and positive change in Idaho’s rural towns. Community reviews have recently been completed or are in progress in McCammon, Ashton, and Blackfoot. These communities have identified a desire for change in areas such as:

· Downtown revitalization

· Community beautification

· Infrastructure and other public services

· Opportunities for youth

· Recreation and entertainment

· Community image and branding

· Housing and homelessness

· Transportation

The success of the Community Review Program is due to the participation of numerous partner agencies and organizations and financial contributors like USDA Rural Development, Federal Highway Administration, Bayer, and Idaho National Laboratory. We will be initiating the 44th community review in Harrison this summer.

This fall, IRP will be inviting applications from communities for a review in 2020 and 2021.

Go to our Community Review Page for more information about the Community Review Program .

IRP Welcomes New Board Members

IRP would not exist without the active participation of board members. We welcome our newest board members and appreciate their passion for rural Idaho.

James Alexie is the CEO of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe Development Corporation. James has been appointed to the board by the Coeur d’Alene Tribal Council.

Kermit Mankiller is the Executive Officer of Nez Perce Tribal Enterprises. Kermit has been appointed to the board by the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee.

Brian Dale is the State Director of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He replaces John Meyers on the board.

Tom Dayley is the State Executive Director of the USDA Farm Service Agency. He replaces former Director Evan Frasure on the Board.

We anticipate additional board members will be appointed or re-appointed in June.

Thanks to our long time sponsors!

Thanks also to Idaho Department of Labor for donating office space and to the Idaho Housing and Finance Association for ongoing support of The Idaho Ruralist e-bulletin and other outreach materials.

Idaho Rural Partnership

1090 E. Watertower St., Suite 100

Meridian, Idaho 83642-8441

208-332-1730 (office)