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Farm Fresh Broadband
This document summarizes the background and key arguments of a book analyzing federal and state policies regarding subsidization, deployment, and regulation of broadband in rural communities. The author is an Associate Professor who researched the topic through a policy analysis of over 10,000 pages of documents, 90 interviews, and site visits. The book argues that rural broadband policy is both incomplete and broken, failing to bring affordable, high-speed broadband to rural areas due to regulatory capture and prioritizing large internet providers. It also highlights some local success stories of communities connecting themselves with the help of cooperatives or local ISPs. The conclusions call for a national rural broadband plan, recognizing the importance of local broadband, and ensuring history does not repeat itself in
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Farm Fresh Broadband
- 2. Who am I? •Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia • PhD from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania • Research specialization in communication policy, broadband policy, local news, localism • Testified before the full Senate Commerce Committee in March 2021 about rural broadband programs • By-lines in the New York Times, The Hill, Realtor Magazine, Columbia Journalism Review, Digital Beat
- 3. The book An analysisof federal and state policies regarding the subsidization, deployment, and regulation of broadband to rural communities. A story of failure and a story of promise
- 4. Rural broadband policyis both incomplete and broken Argument of the book
- 5. Method Policy analysis of10,000+pages + 90+ in-depth interviews + “Rural broadband road trip” = “Lived policy”
- 6. 6 take aways TheRural Electrification Administration: There is a strong historical connection between rural electrification in the 1930/1940s, rural telephony in the 1950s and rural broadband today. The Politics of Good Enough: Federal policy has failed to bring affordable, high-performance broadband to rural America. Regulatory Capture: Policy has failed because it privileges the largest and loudest providers. “Local broadband is the best broadband”: Local communities have connected themselves in the absence of private market or policy help. This is often done in partnership with a telephone or electric co-operative or local ISP. Fiber to the farm? High performance broadband is vital for contemporary agriculture, but comes with unacknowledged challenges Hype: Beware the hype and critique those doing the hyping!
- 7.
- 8. Conclusions • We needa national rural broadband plan to cut through this clutter. • We need to remind lawmakers and policymakers that local broadband is the best broadband • We need to make sure that history does not repeat itself when it comes to the infrastructure package • Broadband is not about technologies, companies, or policies. It is about people.
- 9. “Everything is betterwith better broadband” Bernadine Joselyn, Director of Public Policy and Engagement, Blandin Foundation (Minnesota)
- 10. 10 Thank You. Christopher Ali,PhD Associate Professor Department of Media Studies University of Virginia cali@virginia.edu @ali_christopher
Editor's Notes
- #5 I argue in the book that rural policy is both incomplete and broken. It is incomplete and broken because it lacks coordinated federal leadership, and is mired in a battle between regulators, a bewildering array of rules, inconsistent state intervention, the dominance of large providers and a policy process that favors these companies over the hundreds of local ISPs. To be sure, the $6 billion allocated for rural broadband deployment is being spent on rural broadband, but it is not being spent efficiently or democratically
- #6 I address my research questions and others through a triangulated method of critical discourse analysis and thematic coding analysis of policy documents and public comments to regulatory dockets, in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, and site visits and participant observation with rural broadband providers, rural communities, industry events and regulatory proceedings. The hallmark of my research has most certainly been what I called the “rural broadband roadtrip” where my hound dog Tuna, and I drove 4,000 miles across the American Midwest meeting with, talking to, and learning from rural residents, broadband providers, local officials, and state representations. And I call this a process of “lived policy” – borrowing from lived theology and contextual theology - a method to understand how public policy decisions are lived on the ground.
- #10 I want to conclude this talk by reading the last page of the book, which I think sums up the issue quite nicely. Moreover, I ask your indulgence, as this is the first time I’ve ever read outloud from one of my books. I hope it means that I’m becoming a more accessible writer! Here it is: I am continually struck by something Bernadine Joselyn, director of public policy and engagement at Minnesota’s Blandin Foundation, told me in her interview for this book: “Everything is better with better broadband.” I repeat it here and throughout this book to shed a clear, bright light on a complex issue. This is not a technologically determinist argument—the mere existence of broadband in a rural community does not correct rural inequity ipso facto, although the lack of connectivity certainly does not help. Instead, I invoke this phrase to demonstrate how broadband, rural broadband, and broadband policy are lived and experienced (or not) on the ground in rural communities throughout the country. Broadband policy (such as it is) may be written in Washington, with legal prose refined at the headquarters of AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, Windstream, and Frontier, but it is lived in Luverne, Minnesota; McKee, Kentucky; and Mineral, Virginia. At its farthest reach, Joselyn’s phrase parallels conversations occurring at the United Nations and the European Union about whether internet access can be called a human right, akin to the rights to information, education, and participation. Closer to home, it reminds us that at the end of the day, broadband is not about policy, politics, technology, or money; it is about people. When deployed democratically and harnessed inclusively, everything can be better with better broadband, from homework to work to voting to health to talking with grandma. “Everything is better with better broadband” is a call to end the rural-urban digital divide and the multitude of digital divides brought on by inequality in the United States. Thank you.