One topic that will receive quite a bit of attention here (and I swear I’ll work on crafting less clunky headlines—bear with me) is general policy about telecommuting and telework-related issues. What is so striking about covering these topics is that they involve several diverse aspects across the policy spectrum. Sometimes, what might seem like a distanced news item can have an enormous impact on telecommuting and its viability for the future. Like, for instance, rural dwellers and economic recovery packages.
A current example of one of these “what does this have to do with telecommuting” issues is the initiative under the $7.2 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which despite the sound of it, actually presents some rather striking implications for expanding broadband access. This is big news for telecommuting because it means that it will add hundreds of thousands more workers to the roll of potential teleworkers, simply by providing access to what sponsors call “underserved” (and no, that’s not undeserved as I thought when I first read it) areas. These are the areas that most deserve the assistance to build, maintain, and further develop broadband infrastructure and include educational institutions, libraries and other public computing spots, and otherwise disadvantaged areas where broadband development is critical. While most of these are urban or suburban centers slated for better access, the meat of this bill not so much in this aspect, but rather it’s in what it provides for rural areas.
Those who follow news about telecommuting initiatives should make note of the rural broadband funding simply because it is incredibly important to the task of approaching a remote revolution. According to the spending package, 75% of the funding (which is 2.5 billion under the sub-branch of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program) has been dedicated to serve rural areas that have otherwise been left in the dark during the broadband sweep of the last decade. This is great news for otherwise disadvantaged rural areas for educational, health, and basic communications reasons and it opens up an entirely new segment of the population to new teleworking opportunities.
As it stands, companies in smaller towns with employees who live in even smaller, more rural towns might not be able to introduce a flexible work schedule or telecommuting program simply because their employees are one of the unserved areas in the
But wait, you ask, how big is the population of rural dwellers that are without such access? Surely, you think, it must not be very large… Well, think again. While the FCC has been reluctant to spill any firm statistics (leaving us to go through all zip codes manually, this breakdown of wireless/broadband stats is quite enlightening).
All of those zip codes, lingering, waiting to join the rest of us. All of the people in those zip codes still drive to work—sometimes farther than the average commuter due to job availability. While I agree that there are far, far better reasons to promote full-coverage broadband access for drastically more important reasons, sustainability and the telecommuting issue are still worth considering as side matters.
While the new legislation under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is powerful funding-wise, there have been other efforts that have achieved moderate levels of success, such as the Rural Development program, which started in 2000 and was run by the USDA (who are, allow me to remind you, the same people who do cattle inspections). While the new push for increased access under the 2009 is far better managed as it’s being handled by communications experts this time, time will tell how big of a difference this will make on the lives of rural dwellers and eventually, on telecommuting.
4 comments:
Expanding broadband access opens up economic opportunities, not just for telecommuting but home-based businesses or agricultural businesses. I client of mine has launched http://weneedbroadband.com to map rural broadband demand so that underserved areas can get their need mapped and aggregated. Check it out if you or your readers can benefit from better or any broadband access.
I am so glad to see that someone is making an effort to offer some kind of statistically-based assessment of those without broadband. When I wrote this post, I literally spent about 2 hours mining for some kind of fact, figure, or realistic estimate about the number of people without broadband in rural areas. All I found was that pain-in-the-ass zip code list that would take hours on Excel to map down.
I also agree about the possibilities for home-based business and although I did not directly state it anywhere, that is included under the "banner" of teleworking as well.
Thank you so much for your contribution and insight and I hope your client's project succeeds.
Satellite is a workaround for much of those that don't have wired broadband. That doesn't help everyone though whether due to sight lines or cost.
I've often thought of broadband as an analog to the Interstate Highway System (another Federal project). The potential economic impact is huge for businesses, workers, and consumers as increasingly, the flow of information is as important as the flow of goods. A great road system is something we take for granted but just imagine the difference without it.
Another interesting parallel, the highway system was initially conceived as a way to improve national defense by allowing easy movement of troops throughout the country. The Internet was initially born to network defense radar together for tracking of enemy bombers. But I digress...
That is a fascinating parallel between large infrastructure and this remote sort. On a side note, isn’t it amazing how so many wonderful things in this country have their root in aggression (and to be fair, counter-agression)?
Satellite is an option, I absolutely agree and furthermore, if the plans to carry broadband through electrical lines goes anywhere, this problem will be even further mitigated. I do, however, think that the cost issue is a big one with satellite being far more expensive than traditional high-speed internet—it can easily cost twice as much monthly assuming it’s in comparison to what someone using cable pays in an area with healthy broadband competition. Another drawback to satellite is that it is notoriously slow and can be far more unstable—and instability of a connection, especially when working remotely, can create a big problem.
If what rural customers are subjected to (simply because of geographic/location differences) is more expensive, slower internet than what the rest of the country has, it’s not much of an improvement. Better than dial-up, of course, but still not even close to equal.
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