By Linda Longstreth
Getting every West Virginia community connected to broadband has been one of our biggest challenges for years. The COVID-19 pandemic has made it more urgent.
Broadband is no longer a luxury but a fundamental necessity. West Virginia’s ability to recover from the pandemic, educate our youth and thrive in the global economy can only be accomplished if all our citizens — whether in cities or rural areas — are online.
West Virginia, despite substantial investments in broadband infrastructure in recent years, still ranks 47th out of all U.S. states for access to broadband internet. And 20% of our citizens have no option for home broadband service at speeds of 25 megabits per second or faster.
I, along with my colleagues Delegates Mike Caputo and Michael Angelucci, understand that this situation is particularly troubling in rural areas. While the majority of Marion County has broadband access, there are still residents who do not have service in their homes. Many other counties’ residents also lack available service.
This trend mirrors what we see nationally. While high-speed networks reach 95% of Americans overall, and have fueled incredible economic growth nationally in the last two decades, big gaps persist in rural areas where low population densities and difficult terrain make it more expensive and difficult to build broadband infrastructure.
Rural broadband is increasingly both an education issue and a health care issue. Telemedicine is particularly critical for communities hurt by recent hospital closures — such as when the Fairmont Regional Medical Center closed in April for three months until WVU Medicine stepped in to thankfully reopen the facility. The Williamson Memorial Hospital in Mingo County closed in May. Broadband-powered telemedicine apps become a literal lifeline for patients without easy access to health care facilities.
Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito have long been champions on this issue, including pushing for legislation to enable disadvantaged and rural communities to get better access to telemedicine.
Now, their colleagues on both sides of the aisle need to join with them to make rural broadband a reality. We need a renewed commitment of resources and smarter policies from the federal government, on par with the vision and scale of last century’s rural electrification efforts.
In 2009, during the last economic crisis, Congress appropriated $7 billion for rural broadband. But the effort saw paltry results, and rural communities like those here in West Virginia paid the price.
Investigations found those programs rife with waste; among other issues, funds were used to build networks in communities that already had high-speed fiber infrastructure. In Colorado, as just one example, one 11-student school ended up with three separate high-speed fiber-optic connections — while many West Virginia communities that don’t have any broadband didn’t see a dime. And 40% of broadband projects approved by the Rural Utility Service never even got started.
We need to learn from those mistakes. Congress needs to ensure that future rounds of federal broadband funding gets spent where the needs are greatest — rural communities that don’t have any options right now for high-speed internet service.
Federal broadband programs have also been held back by arcane rules that discourage competition and let local regulators steer contracts to local incumbents instead of a fully competitive process where the best and most cost-effective builder will win. That kind of favoritism is a recipe for waste and poor results.
This time, we need to get every capable broadband provider, large or small, onto the field to help tackle this crisis. More competition will mean faster progress and better use of taxpayers’ dollars.
Partisan politics have led to a polarization on many important issues on the national and local levels in recent years. Progress on issues like rural broadband, which is critical to our state’s economic future, have gotten lost in the noise.
But West Virginians are interested in pragmatic results more than ideology. And this pandemic is yet another reminder of why leaders need to set aside politics and focus on getting things done.
This time, we need to get it right.
Linda Longstreth currently represents the 50th District in the West Virginia House of Delegates.
