Fergie's Tech Blog

Money Is There to Aid Rural Internet, but Loans Are Hard to Get

Vikas Bajal writes in The New York Times:

Daniel and Linda Hawkins expected to lose some amenities when they moved to this small farming town [Dallas Center, Iowa], population 1,759, from a slightly larger city nearby. But they were so sure they would have high-speed Internet access that they had high-capacity wiring installed in every room in the house.

After all, many farmers who live nearby subscribe to a high-speed wireless service provided by Prairie iNet, a small company based outside Des Moines, and they zip effortlessly around the Web.

But to the couple's dismay, their new house, complete with a fishing pond in the back, lies in a wireless dead zone, one that Prairie iNet is not likely to fill soon. Turned down by a federal loan program meant to bring high-speed access to rural areas in 2004, the company is using its limited private funds to expand service to small businesses in the Des Moines suburbs rather than farmers and homes spread among the rolling corn and soybean fields of Iowa and Illinois, a constituency it started serving in 2000.

posted by Fergie @ 11/29/2005 07:00:00 AM