A hidden cost of rural broadband

Back in January '09, I was creeping down the information superhighway at 28.8kbps before "upgrading" to 1.5Mbps DSL in 2010. Over a decade later, in late April of this year, our local electric cooperative's Freedom Fiber broadband venture finally made it to our farm in all of its 100Mbps glory. And we could get up to a Gig if we needed it.

It is FANTASTIC!

Unfortunately though, we have discovered a hidden cost of having rural broadband on the farm.

Because our fiber network has been installed by our electric co-op, the lines are suspended beneath existing electrical lines rather than buried. That's not really a problem until they run too low across your fields.

A couple of tractors pulling hay equipment confirmed today what our eyes have been telling us for the past several weeks: there are two fiber lines crossing one of our hay fields that aren't high enough for all of our equipment to pass under. Thankfully, the equipment we had in the field today did just clear the lines, but we'll be out of luck if something doesn't change by the time Spring silage harvest rolls around.

these fiber internet lines are a few feet higher than my truck...but only a few inches higher than a tractor

The good thing about these lines belonging to our local electrical co-op rather than a big national company is that they'll work with you to solve the problem. I reached out to them this afternoon and have been told a crew will be coming to look at options within the next few days. Hopefully we can find a solution that doesn't involve having a pole sunk in the middle of the field, but we can deal with it if that's what it takes. Losing a few square yards of  hay or silage production around a utility pole is much better than losing a ten-foot swath the whole width of the field due to low hanging lines, and it's a price worth paying if that's what it takes to keep the broadband we've waited so long for.

UPDATE: The problem was fixed (without adding a pole!) less than 24 hours after I reported it. As I mentioned, that’s the benefit of doing business with a local company.

Mettings missed, made, and yet to come

Aside from beginning our spring silage harvest and dealing with unexpected power outages and storm damage, this week will go in the books as a pretty busy one on account of some important meetings that have been scheduled.

I had to miss the first one due to the aforementioned storm problems. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) holds an annual town hall meeting in all the state's counties and was in Vernon this past Monday afternoon. I had planned on attending but we got so far behind on work that day I wasn't able to shake loose quick enough to clean up and head to town. I had planned to ask him his view on the Uniform Trucking Bill (S639), but I suppose I'll have to do that through his office since I missed the personal opportunity.

Yesterday after work I had a very interesting meeting with a researcher working in connection to Alabama's rural broadband development efforts. Going into it I knew that I was one of twenty-something interviewees (from all across the state and from different business sectors) that would be asked to talk about how broadband connection would have an impact on my business and local economy. What I expected was a lot of standard Q&A, but it was much different that that. Dr. Gillis presented it basically as three different conversations. The first was based upon my current day goals for the future but assumed we were talking in the year 2020 and I was reflecting on how those goals had been accomplished on my farm, in my industry, and within the local & state economies. This was by far the longest part of the interview. The next conversation was similar but was based upon my current worries as I again "looked back" in 2o2o and opined all the negatives that we had been effected by in ten years time. My thoughts as to how the availability of high-speed communication technology impacted both the optomistic and pessimistic view of the future reality were intertwined through both conversations. Lastly, we talked about the real current day and near-term issues that would steer the future towards either my positive or negative outlook.

I hope that my nearly three hour session with Dr. Gillis will ultimately help my fellow farmers and rural residents of Alabama to get reliable, affordable high-speed communications. But if not, at least I will have benefited from the visioning process I went through. While goal setting isn't all that unfamiliar to me, I had never approached it from the standpoint of being in the future looking back on why my goals were or were not accomplished. It gave me a very interesting, very different perspective and I would encourage folks to give that exercise a try!

Lastly, dad and I will be attending a meeting on Friday morning with State Representative William Thigpen and several other dairy farmers from a three-county area to discuss a dairy industry stabilization bill we would like to see intruduced in the Alabama Legislature. I'll blog more info about the proposal and the meeting in the days to come.

Have a great day everyone, and help a dairy farmer out...make sure you, your family, and your co-workers all get their three servings of milk, cheese, or yougurt today. Not only will it help us out here on the farm, but it'll provide you with some power-packed tasty nutrition!

Giving credit where credit is due

I was fortunate to be one of four Alabamians joining Governor Bob Riley via video conference during an event at which he announced a vendor to lead the state's rural broadband access expansion effort. There's a nice news story about the event on the Alabama Farmers Federation's website.

My job was pretty simple...just talk about why farmers and the agricultural industry need broadband. I basically rehashed what I had typed in an earlier blog post, "Creeping down the information superhighway". I was also able to work in a mention that many of us involved in our state's number one industry could use broadband access to help spread the truth about agriculture, and how production and the stewardship of our environment and animals goes hand-in-hand.

If you read the online story linked above, you might notice I also mentioned that a person using dial-up could make and drink a cup of coffee before a website was even half loaded. That thought, I must confess, was not one of my own. Earlier this morning I had a telephone conversation with Jesse Hobbs, a good friend and row-crop farmer from Elkmont, Alabama. I asked him about his farm's internet connection and he shared the "coffee example" while expressing his dial-up frustrations. So here's to you Jesse...you gave me a good line and I'm giving credit where credit is due.

Creeping down the information superhighway

To the best of my knowledge, I was the first person in my high school class to have an internet connection at home and an email address. My parents subscribed to a dial-up plan that brought the world to my computer screen at 26.6kbps...pretty decent for a country boy in 1995.

After having the wonderful experience of using high-speed internet at college, I returned back to the farm in 2001 and signed up for the only 'net connection option available to me...dial-up. I'm still using it and on a good day I can get a 28.8kbps connection.

There are higher-speed options available to me. A local company installs wireless internet, and I could always subscribe to a satellite service. What I would really like is for the phone company to extend their DSL service by LESS THAN A MILE so I could get access to it, though an operator once told me, "it could be between three months and three years before it's available at your location." I don't want to pay $40 more monthly for a wireless connection that's 128k slower than the basic DSL package or $50 more monthly for a satellite connection (plus equipment costs and a 2 year commitment) that's equal to the mid-range DSL package. I need better options!

We in rural America need reliable, affordable broadband access. Especially farmers, who now more than ever need access to up-to-the-minute information, educational "webinars", and other 'net applications that are only practical with a high-speed connection. And that's just the receiveing part of it. More and more of us are using the 'net to promote our products and farms and are using it to share the story of agriculture with the populace at-large. A good example of how broadband access would be beneficial for me is that it would give me the ability to post videos of my farm. These videos could be the best avenue through which to share about my operation, but I simply don't have the connection I need to upload such large files.

Thankfully, there are other people concerned with this issue. Alabama's governor, Bob Riley, issued an executive order last May creating the Alabama Broadband Initiative. The goal is to extend broadband capabilities throughout our state, and hopefully that will include Gilmer Dairy Farm. Provided all the technical issues get worked out, I'll be participating in a video conference (from a location with high-speed, of course) Monday morning and will address some of these concerns. I certainly look forward to the opportunity and hope that I can make a meaningful contribution.

I don't expect someone to knock on my door next week and tell me that broadband is available to me, but knowing that our state government is making a committment to expanding it at least gives me a little hope. It also means I'll be patient and stick with dial-up instead of switching to wireless or satellite...at least for a little while longer.

Quick update

The ground has finally dried enough and the weather this morning has been ideal for spreading organic fertilizer, so that's what I've been doing pretty much all morning. I came in for lunch about 1:15, swallowed a peanut butter sandwich and some chips, and will be heading back as soon as I get this posted.

While on the tractor this morning, I've been trying to collect my thoughts about this new "Green Bible". The Advocates for Ag and Rural Vet blogs listed on my blogroll have each posted responses to it if your interested in learning more. I hope to post my own ideas as soon as I can get a little more information about it myself.

I'll also plan to post something about rural broadband access by the end of the week.

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