Filling Gaps In The Broadband Map

A contractor is plowing fiber optics into the ground in Covington County, South Dakota. This branch line will serve only two customers who, until now, have been unable to receive consistent broadband due to their distance from the nearest town.

Half of the project's costs are being funded by Connect South Dakota, an initiative of the State of South Dakota to connect the 31,000 households and businesses that have been the hardest to connect to existing broadband systems. By bundling both State and Federal dollars with capital and materials from local broadband providers, the gaps in South Dakota’s broadband map are being filled. 

Across the state, rural residents have been able to take advantage of the improved broadband and make a business in an isolated rural area viable.

Emily Mueller, Business Owner, Big Stone City, South Dakota: “Yes, I work from home. I my I have a home office. And so I need service to always be going to. And it's been great.”

Emily Mueller runs an accounting business from her home office, which wasn’t practical before their residence was connected to fiber optics. 

Along with her husband Mark, the Muellers operate Big Stone Pumpkin Patch on a farm near Big Stone City, South Dakota. Access to broadband allows the family to complete customer payments using mobile devices in real time at remote locations across their property. 

Mark Mueller, Farmer, Big Stone City South Dakota: “Yeah, we have when we started our pumpkin patch in the fall, we've had no issues with losing our signal. When people are trying to pay, we need to be connected to services so we don't have to be offline and just everything syncing together works a lot better.” 

Over $270 million dollars is being spent in South Dakota to go the last mile to make connections with consumers. Just the cost of trenching fiber optic cable into highway right of ways can exceed $15,000 per mile in challenging conditions, and even higher in more rugged geography. The cost of serving rural areas makes projects like this a non-starter for some internet providers that serve South Dakota’s larger cities and towns. 

The matching funds using state and federal dollars can make a system expansion economically plausible.  For decades, USDA has provided money to improve broadband service in rural America, however, these projects in South Dakota will be completed with COVID-19 relief funds. Applications from locally owned South Dakota internet providers, which are mostly telephone co-ops, are using the injection of capital to extend service past their FCC defined service areas. 

Kara Semmler, South Dakota Telecommunication Association: “The cooperative mindset is about serving communities and the cooperatives I represent saw the need, saw the opportunity, and like I said, they've delivered.”

The national providers that serve the larger cities of South Dakota rarely deliver service past the city limits, as the return quickly becomes a drag on profitability.

Tracy Bandemer, CEO, Interstate Telecommunications Cooperative: “And what was attractive to us is a~reas that adjoin us. So if they're just right next door, we're interested in that area because there's efficiencies. We actually had already often had people coming to us wanting us to serve them, but it wasn't feasible with the cost of the the fiber builds. So yeah, the Connect South Dakota program made a huge difference for these people. They wanted these people served. We wanted to serve them and the customer needed us.”

Interstate Telecommunications Cooperative of Clear Lake, South Dakota completed a 12 year project to replace all of its copper service lines with fiber optics in 2020. The Federal and State monies have allowed the coop to extend service to underserved customers outside their 17 county footprint, which includes three counties in Minnesota.

For practical purposes, dependable broadband is no longer an entertainment frill; it has become a required utility.

Kara Semmler, South Dakota Telecommunication Association: “Yes, absolutely. I think that is right on. It is a necessity. It's not a luxury. So the opportunities, the the payback to our citizens and our state is tremendous. Just like rural electric, just like rural water was years ago.”

David Hicks is a contractor who lives in Lake County, South Dakota, who also serves on the Executive Board of the Grant County Development Corporation. Businesses looking for new locations have little interest in sites without broadband.

David Hicks, Contractor, Grant County, South Dakota:

“It either has it or it doesn't. So you're you can't really pitch one that doesn't have the Internet service. I mean, that's if you don't have it, you better figure out how to get it or they need to go somewhere else and they don't even consider it anymore.”

Valley Queen Cheese Plant in Milbank, South Dakota is increasing its capacity, which will require workers to move to the area for jobs, and raise demand for milk in the area. Both prospective workers and future milking cows need the internet in their daily lives.

David Hicks, Contractor, Grant County, South Dakota:

 “Because we got a lot of big dairies looking at South Dakota right now that want to get to this area.  We have a cheese plant expanding, um, and they are required all that same stuff and good internet. I mean a lot of that stuff is handled online anymore or it's linked. The cows are linked.”

Mark Mueller believes the efficiency of his farming operation has improved with the broadband connection. 

Mark Mueller, Farmer, Big Stone City South Dakota: “I've we've tried to implement technology on our farm, adding monitors. We've had a yield monitor for years, and now we're able to sync our iPads and other technology as we just pull up next to our house through our shop to download the information online.”

Broadband providers are averaging 70 percent sign ups along the new broadband lines but encouraging property owners to take advantage of the service can be challenging.

Beyond the financial costs of expanding broadband service, a stable connection to the internet is now viewed by many as an expectation. The Federal government has prioritized daily mail delivery to every address since the founding of the country, and the communications mandate has expanded into both voice and data connections.

Tracy Bandemer, CEO, Interstate Telecommunications Cooperative: “I think back to the days of the telephone, you know, when it was said everybody should be able to have the same service in the United States. And so that's when support was started to be received. I don't see that any different. We're all United States citizens. We should all have the same opportunity to have good broadband support.” 

For Market to Market, I’m Peter Tubbs