STUDY: Rural broadband gap understated

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research. The number of people without access to high-speed Internet is probably higher than the federal data suggests because of the way those estimates were generated, he said.

The FCC data is based on reports from Internet Service Providers. The estimates are derived from population data by census block — and if a telecommunications company says it provides broadband in an area, all residents of that the area are counted like they have access to high-speed Internet. But in rural areas, in particular, those estimates may be out-ofwhack, Denk said.

“I’m not pointing fingers. They are reporting what they’re being asked to report,” he said.

To provide a better snapshot, Penn State researchers have created an online speed test that people can use to measure how fast the Internet is at their homes or businesses.

The test has been run 5.7 million times, Denk said. That will allow the researchers to be able to create maps showing what speed Internet service is available in each of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, and provide the same data for each state House and state Senate district, he said.

That data will be important to inform policy discussions, he said. But the data’s not the only consideration, Denk said.

State officials need to also understand the real-world implications of the lack of broadband. His group held a hearing in northcentral Pennsylvania last summer to give people the opportunity to explain how lack of high-speed Internet is impacting them.

The lack of highspeed Internet will also be an impediment to efforts to use telemedicine to improve rural health care, Denk said.

Denk noted that the Center for Rural Pennsylvania heard from a farmer in Erie County who said he’s had to load all of his financial documents onto a thumb drive to take to his accountant. They also heard from a rural school superintendent who talked about how all students had been given laptops or Ipads, but that some students couldn’t use the devices for homework because their families don’t have high-speed Internet at home.

That problem was noted by state Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill in a memo to lawmakers seeking support for proposed legislation to encourage state efforts to diminish the digital divide in rural Pennsylvania.

In areas of the state where broadband isn’t widespread, one can often arrive at schools 30 minutes before the start of the school day and observe parents in their idling cars while their children feverishly work to complete their computer homework assignments using the school Wi-Fi because high-speed broadband internet is unavailable in their residential areas,” she wrote.

Phillips-Hill has proposed legislation that would direct the state to launch an analysis of state-owned communication towers, buildings and facilities to determine if the state can “leverage existing state-owned assets” to expand the availability of high-speed Internet.

The biggest hurdle is finding a way to help telecommunications companies see an incentive in rolling out high-speed Internet in areas where there isn’t a great density of customers, Denk said.

The federal government can play a role, said state Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Lycoming County, the chairman of the Center for Rural Pennsylvania.

He noted that in his northcentral Pennsylvania senatorial district, Tri-County Rural Electric Cooperative was the biggest recipient of Connect America Fund grants announced in September. The company electric cooperative got $3.2 million from the federal Connect America Fund and another $1.5 million from the state to install infrastructure for broadband in Potter County.

It’s the first rural electric cooperative to launch an effort to provide high-speed Internet and Yaw said they can demonstrate how the service can be rolled out into underserved areas.