More Technology Choices for Rural Consumers?  

If you live in a major city like Dallas Philadelphia or Los Angeles California you probably have a ton of choices when it comes to your technology needs for all things from internet access to phone service to Broadband Providers. Even those is smaller cities with populations around 100,000 or more seem to have a decent amount of choice today but what about the 25% of all Americans that live in rural America? What choices do they have if any and it is getting any better?

Well the answer is there is still a long way to go but indeed there are far more options available today then even just 5 years ago. In this article we will examine two key areas where geography has traditionally be an obstacle in having choice or even any options available at all. Those two areas are local phone service and broadband internet access.

Local Phone Service - More Options Today Then Ever

Just ten years ago the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed. The Act was the first major overhaul of telecommunications law in almost 62 years. The goal of this new law was to let anyone enter any communications business -- to let any communications business compete in any market against any other. At least that is how is was presented yet a great deal of customers in more urban areas, specifically those served by smaller ILECs never realized anything happened at all. They still had one choice which most of the simply referred to as, "The Phone Company".

Yet even after the FCC supported UNE-P platform was turned upside down in 2004 CLECs (competitive local exchange carriers) have really turned up the effort to serve the smaller Tier C and Tier D markets that missed the initial opening of competition to the market. An example of one such CLEC is Sage Telecom which offers their local phone service options in rural areas in Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin and seems committed to continuing to expand coverage to more markets. Generally Sage Customers enjoy up to a 40% savings over the incumbent provider in some of the more rural markets though out their 12 state foot print.

The past decade has been a real whirlwind in the local phone services market with some CLECs growing and becoming a major source of choice, unfortunately others have amassed huge debts and in some cases that has made them targets and the major RBOCs have simply bought them, assumed their debts and rolled customers right back into the old system. Certainly others are ripe for this to occur as well, yet there are some that have run sensible business models and are today strong and growing and for the more remote consumer that means more choices. While there is still a long way to go this trend is encouraging.

Broadband Internet Access - Slow Rural Deployment But Progress Is Coming

One of the more frustrating things for many rural community members is the lack of availability of any broadband internet access. DSL is generally limited to about 18,000 feet or less (around 3 miles) from the telecom Central Office so in most rural areas on a few folks lucky enough to live close to a point of presence can get access. The Cable TV companies have done a decent job deploying to areas with out DSL but many areas still can't get cable internet or DSL. Worse where Cable is available and DSL is not you can expect to pay a real premium for Cable Modem Service because the cable company knows it is either cable modem or dial up.

The industry would have us believe that this is simply the way thing have to be but that is pretty misleading. DSL is certainly a technology that could be moved closer to the edge of the telecommunications networks if providers wanted to make it happen. Of course this would bring VoIP Phone Service into the mix and the incumbent carriers like AT&T and Quest really don't want that to say the least. Recently I learned about a new organization called the Rural Broadband Coalition who is working to improve rural broadband availability. This is the first group like this to really make a strong push both on the consumer end and with Washington to get barriers to competition lifted so that is very encouraging.

As WiMax continues to develop it will only be a matter of time until broadband access will be available to all but the most remote areas. Until then consumers can take some solace in knowing that as the urban communities reach a point of heavy penetration companies will have no choice but to turn their attention to the almost 100 million Americans that represent the biggest growth opportunity for broadband access (the ones with out any options right now).

In Conclusion

In all areas there is a long way to go before we can say that true technology availability and competition has been brought to most of America but with efforts from organizations like Sage Telecom and the Rural Broadband Coalition and countless others the situation should continue to improve. Americans including those is more remote locations are becoming more dependent on technology every day. Small town America continues to attract big business expansions with low costs of land, lower median wages and lots of room to spread out. For these small towns to be effective in attracting sizeable companies requires better access to technology so this is another incentive for choices to continue to improve.

One day even those who live on Mountain tops will have a high speed connection and a host of providers to choose from for basic communications. Until that day the best way to encourage progress is to choose to do business with smaller competitors when and where they are available.

About the Author

Jerry Adams has been working in and writing about the telecommunications industry for over 25 years. Having been in the industry since before the AT&T break up he has witnessed the massive changes that have taken place in telecom as an active participant. You can learn more about him at his blog called Broadband Phone Stuff and More .