Overview of Broadband Technologies

What is broadband? Broadband allows interactive, real-time audio and video, plus extensive graphics to be delivered to home computers up to 100 times faster than a dial-up modem. Despite the high number of Internet users, the Internet’s potential is not being fully realized, due to bandwidth constraints and lack of access in certain areas. According to a study by the Economic Strategy Institute, a dramatic shift to broadband networks could add an additional $616 to $721 billion to the US Gross Domestic Product by 2005. Additionally, it could add another 4.4 to 5.1 million new jobs and lead to technology-led economic development for regional development organizations.

Because of the lack of broadband availability, small and medium-sized businesses and rural areas are, according to the US Department of Commerce and others, not positioned to succeed in the Internet economy. According to Scott Cleland of Legg Mason, less than five percent of towns under 10,000 population have high speed Internet access. IAdvance, a coalition of computer, Internet and telecommunications companies, public interest groups, and others, claims that city dwellers are 18 times more likely to be offered broadband services than rural residents are. Currently, no bandwidth provider is providing these services to nonmetropolitan areas. Based on figures from the Competitive Broadband Coalition, more than 53 million Americans in urban areas will have access to broadband technologies compared to less than one million in rural America.

By the year 2002, the gap between rural and urban Americans will actually increase, according to Wall Street growth projections for various broadband technologies. In three years, for every one rural resident with high-speed access to the Internet, there will be 20 urban residents. In addition, 90 percent of the connections that make up the Internet backbone do not even run near rural areas.

Advanced Technologies

With the advent of the Internet and its inherent possibilities, there is greater potential for a divide between those with and without access. The basic obstacles to using advanced technologies are the same as those faced by rural areas in acquiring affordable telephone service: density and distance. Density of population equates with lower average costs. And the distance between the customer and the central switch is a major cost factor. Rural areas with long local loops are expensive to serve. However, the emergence of advanced communications has the potential to reverse outmigration and declining job opportunities in many nonmetropolitan areas.

While 94 percent of households in the US have basic phone service, only about 44.4 percent have access to and use the Internet. In rural areas, these numbers tend to be lower, because of lower incomes, lower levels of education, lower quality of infrastructure and higher costs of service. Therefore, in order to provide more advanced technologies to small metropolitan and rural areas, there must be increased investment in additional telecommunications infrastructure. What this infrastructure is depends on the desired future direction of a particular community.

With all that the Internet offers, there is a greater need for broadband technology. Yet, broadband is not widely available in rural areas. Such services are generally understood to mean digital information transmission rates (bit rates) that are significantly higher than the nominal 56 kilobits/second, which can be transmitted through an ordinary, high quality telephone voice circuit. The Federal Communication Commission’s definition of broadband is “the capability of supporting at least 200 kilobits/second in the consumer’s connection to the network, both from the provider to the consumer (downstream) and from the consumer to the provider (upstream).” Because most consumers use the Internet to receive data, broadband service offerings are generally asymmetrical (i.e., the downstream link is faster than the upstream link). The majority of the nation’s broadband backbone is composed of fiber optic cables, with satellite links connecting areas that are difficult to reach by landlines or underwater cable. Fiber provides an almost unlimited capacity for transporting data at high rates. With current technology, it is possible for a single fiber to carry 400 gigabits/second, which is equivalent to two million broadband signals (at 200 kilobits/second) or six million telephone calls (at 64 kilobits/second).

Cable Modems

The cable modem is currently the most widely used broadband technology. It is estimated that cable service is available to between 81 and 97 percent of Americans. Cable networks are able to provide broadband service over their coaxial cable, which has the ability to carry high bandwidth. Once only able to provide this service one way, 90 percent of cable companies can now provide two-way service. With more and more people using cable modems, there is a possibility that the quality of the connection will go down. In addition, users must be a certain distance from the switch, making this service limited in rural and remote regions (the same situation exists with cable television service).

Digital Subscriber Line

Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) is the second most widely used broadband service, but its popularity is growing quickly. DSL uses telephone lines to provide broadband services. Unlike cable modems, DSL broadband operates at a more fixed rate. Unfortunately, most of the loops on which DSL cannot operate are in rural areas. The deployment of both cable modems and DSL declines with population density. DSL will have the greater potential of the two for providing service to remote rural areas.

Fiber Optics

Extending fiber optics to homes and businesses may signal the end of distance problems, because fiber does not lose quality with distance. Its range can be up to 100 miles. Fiber can be very expensive, compared with the costs for DSL or cable modems.

Wireless

Wireless cable, or multipoint multichannel distribution system (MMDS), is another option for delivering data via point-to-multipoint microwave radio signals. Local Multipoint Distribution System (LMDS) is another fixed wireless technology capable of providing broadband service. It offers higher data rates but shorter range (no more than three or four miles) than MMDS. Another option is satellite service, which is particularly promising for remote rural areas. Satellite systems are already in use and promise to offer broadband services regardless of location or geography.

Options for Rural Regions

For rural regions to effectively participate in the telecommunications “revolution,” there are four possible options:

• A Rural Area Network, in which government, educational institutions, businesses and residents aggregate demand and use one access point. This solution allows a community to overcome the lack of demand inherent in smaller populations and population densities. By pooling users, a community can create more leverage, share costs and aggregate demand. This allows a single point of connection, connecting multiple users to a network and then connecting the network to a public network via a service provider. The result is that residents can get advanced telecommunications they might not have if they had not banded together.

• “Interconnection” or “piggybacking,” eliminates the need to build duplicate infrastructure in rural areas. This option requires only that a rural community pay the cost of extending the connection to the network. The only drawback to this option is that owners of an urban network (telephone companies) have little or no incentive to allow this, since it means that rural telephone companies can compete with them for business and profits and may take away some of their capacity.

• Wireless telecommunications holds some promise for remote rural areas, due to the prohibitive costs of setting up wireline technologies. Wireless technologies include microwave and radio, and can eliminate the need to stretch miles of wire and cable. Experts say this will become the dominant technology for most remote and low-density telephone cooperatives. The limit to this option is that wireless is confined to voice, fax and low-speed data transmission. It is also expensive, requiring towers and satellites.

• The final option is working with alternative providers. Large telephone companies are unlikely to provide rural areas with the needed services, because they have no incentive. Smaller telephone companies, electric utilities, cable television companies and municipalities themselves are often in the best position to ensure their communities get what they need.

Percent of US Households with Internet Service By Type of Internet Service Providers (1998) Source: NTIA

Need for Training in Rural Areas

The digital divide especially affects those with lower incomes and lower education levels. A recent National Public Radio survey confirms that lower-income Americans are less than half as likely as those with higher incomes to have an Internet connection at home.

According to the former Tennessee Valley Authority Rural Studies (TVA Rural Studies), simply making telecommunications services available does not ensure they are used and provide benefits to the user. People who lack advanced telecommunications cannot use and benefit from them, are less likely to demand them and unfortunately are less likely to get them. Education, income and age influence the adoption, use and benefit of technology. Younger and more educated people are more likely to use advanced technologies. Rural areas with lower average levels of education and income and increasing numbers of elderly people (due to outmigration of the young and better educated) tend to lag behind urban areas in adoption and use of technology. Many rural users need training in these technologies to take advantage of their benefits. Regulators often take into account only the technological costs and benefits, neglecting the social costs and benefits of advanced telecommunications.

David Freshwater, former Director of TVA Rural Studies reports, “The physical connection is only valuable if the individual who is connected has the skills to use the technology. Educating rural residents about the benefit of computers and helping them acquire the skills they need to benefit from the telecommunications revolution is a necessary part of providing the technology. If the end user does not have a computer or computer skills to access the telecommunications system or fails to appreciate the opportunities it offers, then all the telecommunications infrastructure in the world will not help.”

By Aliceann Wohlbruck, Executive Director, and
Melissa Levy, Digest Managing Editor

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