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07/30/2007Rural Efforts in Montana & North Dakota: A Different Set of Challenges
I recently returned to Minneapolis following a family vacation in Montana. The mountain landscape is breathtaking, the weather was perfect, and the activities were vigorous and very enjoyable. In short, everyone had a great time. We traveled primarily by train and would do it all again in a minute. The route took us across Minnesota, North Dakota and most of Montana. We passed countless towns that were comprised of fewer homes than we have on our block in Minneapolis. I wondered how it would be to live so far removed from the activity level I experience every day in an urban environment. It must be a bleak winter. Kathy suggested that access to on-line communities probably helped. No doubt, but it appeared access to the Internet was somewhat limited. Local residents I spoke to at station stops along the way chuckled at the mention of broadband. One robust North Dakota rancher laughed and said, "That's 22nd Century talk, son." The AT&T mobile phone I carried rarely registered a network link. Sprint and Verizon users indicated they were getting a more regular, if intermittent, signal. A daily newspaper delivered to the train reported that America Online Inc. must pay Montana $45,000 as part of a national settlement avoiding a court battle over how the Internet provider has handled the exodus from its dial-up service. I understood the context of the national settlement, but it was unclear to me what folks were running to instead of dial up. There certainly was no broadband available anywhere we stopped. One corner store was reselling dial-up at Midtown prices and that was the extent of it.
There is, however, some commercial broadband activity underway in Big Sky country. Montana Sky uses a combination of a satellite connection to the Internet backbone and its own unlicensed broadband wireless infrastructure to reach some very far-flung customers. Sofast Communications owns or controls 33 licenses for all the point-to-multipoint MMDS licenses in North Central Montana and offers broadband using this technology in Great Falls and via DSL in five other larger Montana communities. Wireless customers in Helena and Missoula now have access to the latest high-speed business and entertainment services on their wireless phones, laptop computers and other wireless devices thanks to Verizon Wireless. The company has reportedly invested more than $95 million in its Montana network in the past four years. Montana Wireless offers broadband in Corvallis, Frenchtown, Florence, Hamilton, Lolo, Missoula and Victor. No mention of any state wide initiatives on the State of Montana web site. I left a message with Dick Clark, Montana's CIO, to get his perspective on the State's requirements and goals.
North Dakota has a friend in Broadband. The Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation last week co-sponsored by U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) to more accurately determine the gaps in broadband coverage in the United States to help policy makers make better decisions to provide all Americans with broadband access. "The FCC has been claiming that more people have access to broadband service than actually do," said Dorgan. "We must improve the accuracy and quality of broadband data collection in order to address the shortfalls in access and make better-informed decisions about broadband policy. We need to know what areas are being underserved, whether consumers are being overcharged, and if connection speeds are too slow for consumers to benefit."
At Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation in North Dakota, Dewayne Hendricks is installing a wireless network. In its initial form, the system will meet FCC requirements governing frequency, power, and transmission technology. But not for long. Hendricks' mission is to build the best system possible—even if it's illegal—and he intends to use every tool at his disposal. Should the FCC crack down, the tribal leaders will hoist the flag of Native American sovereignty, asserting that they can do whatever they want with the sky above their reservation.
The sovereignty argument might win in court. It might lose. The FCC might not take the bait. Congress might intervene. Any of these outcomes would serve Hendricks' larger purpose: to create public pressure that will force the FCC to loosen its grip. "People on the outside are going to feel like cavemen when they see the tribes with these amazing systems," he says. "If the reservations can have them, why can't everyone?"
Get Broadband is a community-based program, sponsored by the Minnesota based Blandin Foundation dedicated to increasing the use of broadband-based technologies to make your community, its residents and its institutions more productive, efficient and competitive. The Blandin Foundation believes high speed, always-on broadband-based Internet applications and services help rural communities. To date nearly 30 Minnesota communities and three counties have participated in Blandin's unique program. Each State we passed through is dealing with the issue in its own way. Montana's efforts were led by private industry; North Dakota's senior Senator is providing leadership and an innovative cowboy, who also happens to sit on the FCC's Technological Advisory Council. Minnesota is addressing its broadband innovations with the help of a unique Foundation and both public and public/private community initiatives.
In any case, it was a pleasure to return to the work at hand, in Minneapolis, of moving forward with the seemingly minor task of blanketing our 60 square miles with fixed and mobile wireless broadband access. That is a bit less to deal with than Montana's 147046 square miles, and our City is a bit flatter. James Farstad is President of rClient in Minneapolis. He moderates the Service-Provider Executives and Local-Government CIOs Roundtable at the W2i Digital Cities Convention.
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Related Items:
• Minnesota, Get Broadband Program
• Cable to Wi-Fi in Billings, Montana
• All Wireless is Local: Boston's Hands-On Plans
• Wireless Minneapolis: Bill Beck, Deputy CIO
• Philadelphia '06
Comments
Robert Ramsay
An email from Robert Horvitz:
"I saw James Farstad's comment on Dewayne Hendrick's project in North Dakota. The sad fate of Dewayne's New Mexico project seems not to have reached him. Dewayne's role is mainly discussed at the end:
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/metro/578656metro07-15-07.htm
*Sandoval's Network a High-Tech Debacle*
by Colleen Heild and Sean Olson
Copyright © 2007 Albuquerque Journal
06:27 PM, 08/14/2007
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