If the world is moving toward an online community, how important is it for you to reach that community quickly?
Anyone who's on the Internet and has made the move from a dial up connection to a broadband one knows the difference in speeds. Just about everyone who's ever had a broadband connection will say they can't imagine having to go back to using a phone line for their Internet usage.

Despite this, Connected Tennessee estimates that only 43 percent of online users in the state have a broadband connection. In Monroe County that number drops even more, with only 25 percent of Internet users going the high-speed route.
In terms of computer ownership and overall Internet usage, 69 percent of Monroe County homes have computers and 58 percent of those homes have Internet access.

The main reason for this, according to Corey Johns, State Operations Manager for the East Tennessee region of Connected Tennessee, is the immense number of people who live in rural areas.
"Most broadband runs through wires and in most areas it just suddenly stops," he said. "Wireless will probably be the best way to go for those in rural areas. It costs a lot of money to run the wires out and it isn't cost effective for Internet providers to run wires to an area where only four or five households might hook up."

Connected Tennessee is a non-profit group that was started by Gov. Phil Bredesen in the hopes of one day providing access to high speed Internet connections for most residents.
Connected Tennessee believes there would be immense benefits to having most of the state on broadband, including 49,000 new jobs, $1.6 billion in direct income growth, savings of $13 million in health care costs, $130 million in gas costs (as more tasks are handled online) and cut more than 66 million pounds in average annual CO2 emissions.

The question is how to get broadband access to people in rural counties, like Monroe, where three quarters of the Internet using population still have dial up.
"You have to let people know what it is and what it can do for them," Johns said. "For example, kids have high speed Internet at the schools, but then the majority of them go home and either don't have high speed Internet access, or any Internet access at all. The state constitution guarantees an equal education for all, but it's not equal if some students can do all their work in an hour at home while others can only work on one assignment in three hours."

There was $7.2 billion in funds set aside for bringing high speed Internet to rural areas, money that is to be dispensed in two separate stages. The first stage sent out about $4 billion and nearly everybody that applied for it used it to provide high-speed access for emergency departments.
Now it's time for the second stage and Monroe County needs to get word out that it wants to bring high speed Internet to its rural masses.

"Where do you want to see Monroe County in technological terms in five years?" Johns asked. "A third of Monroe County's population claims they don't need broadband service. That might be true for some people, but there's no way that many people can't find a use for broadband.
"What can be done," he added, "is to use places like utility boards and libraries and the school systems to send out questionnaires on who does and doesn't have broadband access. This will help us know who doesn't have broadband and why they might or might not want it."

There is a Connected Monroe County board, a subset of Connected Tennessee, and several of the members agreed to contact the utility boards, libraries and school systems to see if they can start sending out the questionnaires.
When asked if the county could provide the broadband service, Mayor Allan Watson said such an option had been looked at.
"But it's very cost prohibitive," Watson said. "There's no way we could afford it."

Johns agreed saying a couple of counties had tried that route and not been very successful. "It's such an expensive undertaking," he said, "that when the analog bands became available for wireless use (when TV signals went all digital) only two companies stepped up to bid on the rights to use the analog signals in Tennessee."
Johns said anyone needing more information can log onto connectedtn.org.

michael.thomason@advocateanddemocrat.com | 442-4575