High-speed Internet gaps prompt study

By Jessica Lowell

rep5@wyomingnews.com

LARAMIE - Say you live in Wyoming and you need broadband Internetaccess. Do you think you can get it?

It depends on where you live.

The Wyoming Telecommunications Council has found through itsBroadband Initiative that about 80 percent of the households in thestate have access to high-speed Internet through telecommunications,cable or wireless providers, although many areas have holes whereservice is not available.

For the purposes of this study, satellite was not considered.

The hot spots - or places with the best access - are the state'smajor cities, as well as most of the Big Horn Basin.

The council presented its findings at the Wyoming Business Councilmeeting Thursday.

"This could be a powerful tool for economic development, but it'snot there yet," Wyoming Telecommunications Council Chairwoman NinaCornell said. "It doesn't do all it could do."

The Telecommunications Council was given the task of finding areasin Wyoming that most need broadband infrastructure upgrades anddeveloping a plan for universal access.

Gathering the data presented some problems, Cornell said.

Providers were reluctant to share information they consideredproprietary or liable to give away information about themselves thatthey didn't want their competitors to have, she said.

CostQuest Associates, hired to complete the study, was able togain access to the information and present it in such a way that noone's competitive feathers were ruffled.

CostQuest also has identified broadband gap areas with potentiallylow costs to serve with wireless systems, which is the lowest-costoption.

"We need to have a map of providers so that in any given area, itcan be overlaid with territories where each company provides service,so economic development authorities could use that data," she said.

In addition to economic development, the data will haveapplications in education and rural telemedicine, she said.

The report is available online at www.costquest.com/costquest/docs/Wyoming%20Broadband%20Gap%20Whitepaper-4_23_06.pdf.