- Chris Miller
The Rural Broadband Issue
Updated: Mar 22, 2021
Page Sections
Rural Broadband Podcast
Broadband Grant Data
Organizations Discussed In Podcast
Rural Resident Interviewees
Broadband Vignettes
*sections organized in order of how they are discussed in the podcast
1. Rural Broadband Podcast
2. Broadband Grant Awardee Map 2014-2019
Summary of Data
Below is an overview of the more interesting findings based on the Public Service Commissions broadband grants. Within it, I highlight large grants given to small areas, how some county grants are allocated, money given to lake areas, and more.
A city like Cranmoor with less than 200 people gets $100,000 (FY 2014) in grant money, but a county like Vilas with about 20,000 people gets $13,874.
-Same with Ferryville Village, low population but high grant
-Same with Plum Lake
-These are situations where a fiber network is being installed almost from scratch.
Wittenberg Wireless awarded $92,000 in a city (White Lake) with 352 people and one high school (FY 2017)
Wireless Companies overall received $1,539,480 2014-2019
Land O’ Lakes (population, 883) receives over $450,000 from 2016-2018
Bevent town (pop. 1,101) received $314,854 in FY 2018 Round 1
TDS broadband service company total awarded $1,763,057 2014-2019
Bug Tussel Wireless awarded over 802,000 total 2014-2019
CenturyLink awarded over $2.4 million total 2014-2019
Chequamegon Comm. Co-op received $947,282 total 2014-2019
-Four different grants
Lafayette County Development Corporation received $86,084 in FY 2017 while Green County Development Corporation received $414,234 in FY 2018 Round 2
Lake areas receive anywhere from $95k to $135k
Counties Vilas
26,371 housing units
Population 21,938
SonicNet, Inc. awarded $13,874 (FY 2014)
received this single grant
Iron
6,131 Housing Units
Population 5,687
Received $301,316
Over four grants/phases
Oneida
31,379 Housing Units
Population 35,595
Received $489,516
Over five grants/phases
Price
11,454 Housing Units
Population 13,351
Received $554,230
Over three grants
Cities Cranmoor (Wood County)
Awarded $100,000 (FY 2014)
Population, 159
Village of Ferryville (Crawford County)
CenturyLink awarded $125,000 (FY 2015)
Population, 176
159 housing units
Cumberland (Wood county)
Awarded $140,970 (FY 2016)
Population 2,103
Land O’ Lakes (Vilas County)
Population, 883
ChoiceTel awarded $249,093 (phase 1) [FY 2016]
$131,475 (phase 2)
$72,846 (phase 3)
White Lake (Langlade County)
Population, 352
Wittenberg Wireless awarded $92,000 (FY 2017)
Bevent (Marathon County)
Population 1,101
Amherst Telephone Co. awarded $314,854 (FY 2018 Round 2)
Wabeno Town (Forest County)
Population 1,145
CCI Systems awardd $98,000
Brigham
Popualation 1,069
Mount Horeb Tel. Co. awarded $444,200 (FY 2018 Round 2)
Plum Lake
Population, 498
SonicNet, Inc. awarded $51,913
Lakes Lake Eau Claire
CCI Systems awarded $139,467 (FY 2014)
Trout Lake
$95,700 (FY 2014)
Little Green Lake
$102,983 (FY 2019)
Island Lake Area
Awarded $134,516 (FY 2018 Round 2)
Berry Lake
$134,625 (FY 2017)
Trump Lake
$98,000 (FY 2018 Round 2)
Highways
Highway 17
ChoiceTel awarded $47,117 (FY 2014)
Highway G
ChoiceTel awarded $68,313 (FY 2014)
Wireless Companies
WIConnectWireless awarded $35,469 total 2014-2019
Wittenberg Wireless awarded $702,011 total 2014-2019
Bug Tussel Wireless awarded over 802,000 total 2014-2019
More Information
Berry Lake — Underhill, WI (2017)
Many seasonal residents
Underhill is not an affluent area itself at all
A large portion of the tax base comes from the Berry Lake area
The area is 14 miles from the town with a significant job market (Shawano)
Is a “dead area”
In 2016 the only provider in the area became “saturated” and could not add new customers
Island Lake Area — Big Bend Township, WI (2018)
3 business, a bar and grill, a youth community center, and a resort
$201,773 in matching funds to the original $134,515 request totaling $336,289
Unincorporated community
Population 358 (2010 Census)
116 Residential homes in proposed area
Tourism destination
Little Green Lake — Green Lake County, WI (2018)
Part of Markesan School District
Dozens of claims of poor/no service before construction
$154,472 in matching funds to the original $102,983 request totaling $257,455
14 Business
257 residential
White Lake, WI (2018)
363 people (2010 Census)
Total project cost = $189,734.93
first fiber-based broadband connections to approximately 100 residences and businesses
Lando O’Lakes
50 miles of fiber optic infrastructure
Pop. 883 receives over $450,000 from 2016-2018
Bevent
$314,854
154-home project
18 road miles
Green County Development Corporation
Single tower construction
Covers 35-75 square miles
-A township or two
$414,234
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act is a $2 trillion fund that includes helping communities shift to a remote lifestyle among other provisions. There is money sectioned off for increasing the number of broadband connections, virtual education, telehealth, and telework.
For rural areas specifically, the CARES Act sets aside $100 million to the CARES Act allocates funds specifically to help rural communities connect to broadband internet, including $100 million to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The money will be used for supporting construction and equipment efforts to deliver quality internet access to unserved and underserved rural regions.
3. Organizations Discussed In Podcast
The Blandin Foundation fosters collaboration and partnership between rural Minnesotan leaders. It is essentially a community trust. Part of its efforts involve coordinating broadband efforts at state and local levels. This foundation has been investing in health and education since 1941 when it was founded.
The foundation was originally created to support Grand Rapids, Minnesota and its surrounding areas. In the years since its beginnings, the Blandin Foundation has spread throughout Minnesota making investments, creating progressive leadership programs, encouraging meaningful public policy engagement, and giving grants to appropriate projects.
The fiber cooperative in south central Minnesota has small town roots and works to advance the lives of the rural residents it serves. It provides quality broadband that strengthens communities, economic development, healthcare, education, and public safety. The cooperative began building its network in 2015, the year it was formed. However, it took about 7 years to get to the point of construction.
The City of Winthrop Council (Sibley County) and Mark Erickson started exploring the idea of getting a fiber-to-the-home network in 2008. After receiving a Blandin Foundation grant that year, the city was able to invest more money into researching the feasibility of a fiber network. After years of consulting and legislative procedure, RS Fiber began construction in 2015. By 2016 It had laid 96 miles of fiber-optic cable.
This independent research organization has a broadband initiative that investigates the state of broadband in the United States. This is a big task since data on broadband efficacy and coverage is often unreliable and not refined. Pew explores promising practices to increase and enhance broadband networks. It also brings together government, research, and industry leaders to make sure that the fight to increase connectivity is a collaborative effort.
4. Rural Resident Interviewees
Lauren Bushman, Marquette University Junior
Joanna Fradrich, Wittenberg-Birnamwood English Teacher
Matt Reterath, Casimir Polaski High School Biology Teacher
Esther Teresinski, Marquette University Junior
5. Broadband Vignette #1
Hurley is a city in northern Wisconsin adjacent to Michigan and isn’t merely rural, it is “rural remote,” according to resident Neil Klemme, who is also the Hurley 4-H Youth Development Director.
“It’s a two-hour drive for school shopping every year,” he said. “I see more bald eagles on my drive to work than I see cars on most days.”
A high-quality internet connection is a dream in an area like this, even for those who could afford it. Growing internet usage due to the coronavirus pandemic is exposing the lack of network technology in rural areas. This leaves students and teachers to navigate persistent connection problems in a time of online education.
Piper Symons and Mackenzie Backman are seniors at Hurley High School and work with Klemme through the 4-H youth organization. They deal with slow, sometimes nonexistent, internet service in Hurley, population of 1,438. In a time when online schooling is pushing the limits of home internet service, living in a rural area exacerbates the effort to digitally participate in class.
“We have Viasat internet and it’s slower than dirt,” said Backman “In the spring, half of my zoom meetings didn’t even work, and it was just a mess. We had to pay more in the springtime just so I could do my zooms for school.”
Symons lives in downtown Hurley and considers herself “one of the lucky few,” due to having a relatively better internet connection compared to other residents. The pandemic has forced families everywhere to simultaneously conduct their work and school in the same household. Even with fiber-optic cabling, Symons’ situation is no different.
“If my siblings are home and they’re streaming, it’ll cut out,” she said. “When they were trying to do their zooms and I was trying to do mine, we had to choose who could be on.”
Gaining an education online can be difficult even with quality internet access due to the lack of human connection. Poor internet connection can make virtual learning unfeasible at times.
“I am a hands-on learner and have different types of disabilities,” said Backman. “It makes it harder for me to learn online. A teacher can’t come up and physically help me and tell me what I’m doing wrong. For instance, with algebra it would be hard because they couldn’t see it, then I’d have to wait for my email to send, which will probably take 15 minutes.”
Network connection issues also plague rural teachers and youth leaders. They have been forced to considerably adjust their curriculum, and they sometimes just leave things out.
“I would love to do more online, but it would be difficult to guarantee that every kid who is participating would be getting the same thing, said Klemme. “4-H is a very hands-on program, so it’s been challenging to teach kids about how to handle animals or how to cook. It just doesn’t work always.”
Wittenberg-Birnamwood High School English teacher Joanna Fradrich can relate to these challenges of online learning in a rural environment.
“My kids have had trouble too getting stuff to me,” she said. “There would be times when I would set up a google meet with a student then 30 seconds after we get on it would get glitchy and wouldn’t work.”
Fradrich sometimes receives texts from her students saying they can’t do their assignment due to poor Wi-Fi. It is decent, but not always reliable. It comes from a little phone company in town. Her students will sometimes have to go to the library and sit outside of it in their car to do homework.
Fradrich remarked that her students miss being in class with their peers and learning about each other.
“Even though this is a really small community and the kids have been in classes together since kindergarten, there is still stuff they don’t know about each other,” she said.
In her 20th year at the high school, Fradrich and her colleagues must figure out their own ways of adjusting the course material to be compatible with an online environment.
“It takes a lot away by not having in-person instruction, but it takes more away when the technology that you do have doesn’t lend itself well to what you’re trying to do in a makeshift model, she said.
Fradrich describes her home internet connection as decent, but from time to time she’ll “come home and turn on Netflix and it won’t work and the whole town will be down.” The stress on the town’s internet connection caused by increased time spent at home forces Fradrich to develop workarounds for her online classes.
Normally it takes three or four minutes to upload a five-to-seven-minute video to her Chromebook and then post it; however, “There were a lot of times during the pandemic when it would not download all day,” she said. “Then I’d have to wake up at 2 a.m. and do it when hopefully nobody was using the internet in town.”
Broadband Vignette #2
Newton, Wisconsin
Esther Teresinski is a Newton, Wisconsin native who has dealt with unreliable internet service her whole life. “Newton is farm country...all cornfields and everything, maybe a few bars, Teresinski said.”
Her area has one local provider, Lakefield Communications, which only provided dial-up service until just a few years ago. Things have changed for the better in recent years compared to a time when it would take her a couple hours to load a computer game.
Today, her family pays more money to have significantly faster internet, “but it still goes down and is unreliable,” according to Teresinski said.
Families are left to fix internet problems by themselves because slow troubleshooting service. This can be devastating especially to small business owners like Teresinski’s family. They own a banquet hall, so internet service is heavily relied upon.
Once when the internet went out it took about a week for anyone from the internet service company to come by and fix it. The company was even fighting to bring anybody out.
“They don’t want to provide these resources unless absolutely necessary,” Teresinski said. “And it’s so weird, we are literally a drive across their parking lot.”
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The novel coronavirus pandemic has forced many students in Milwaukee to continue their studies online. With all homes having different economic and social circumstances students are guaranteed to have different learning experiences.
Multi-generational families and households with many children have some of the biggest obstacles when it comes to virtual learning.
“The average number of siblings my students have is five, some having 11, some having nine,” said Matt Retterath, a biology teacher at MPS.
Retterath constantly deals with internet-related problems while teaching his classes via google meets. He said he worries that students aren’t getting the same experience out of his classes. Staying in the class sessions can be technologically difficult.
“Sometimes I’ll have a student say hey you’re lagging Mr. R and then other students say they can hear me just fine,” Retterath said. “The biggest one is them constantly disappearing out of the meet and coming back, disappearing then coming back.”
Getting an education when it is tough to virtually attend class impacts a student’s ability to learn and retain information.
“85% of my students are failing right now out of 230 students and a lot of them are missing information when dropping those meets, Retterath said. “The sheer fact that when I give a link to a test and only 100 of my students pick up that link and do something with it is partially a result of this poor internet connection.”