By ANDREA MCCANN

Indiana Correspondent

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Many rural areas don’t have access to broadband internet service, an economic and educational disadvantage to residents – and whole communities – as technology continues to permeate nearly every aspect of daily living.

“If you do not have full access to the Web, you are probably missing out on important educational and employment opportunities, as well as the ability to seek out information on health, finances and more,” said Roberto Gallardo, Purdue University community and regional economics specialist and assistant director of the Purdue Center for Regional Development (PCRD).

“Today, being without high-speed internet access is as great of a disadvantage as not being able to read and write would have been 100 years ago.”

Gallardo and a team of Purdue researchers found that, on average, rural Indiana residents were more likely than city dwellers to lack broadband access. He said traditionally, farmers are early adopters of new technologies – but without high-speed internet access they don’t have the tools to keep up.

“This means many farmers could be missing out on important advancements in digital agriculture simply because they do not have adequate internet service,” he said.

He explained increasingly sophisticated Web content, such as multimedia presentations and video communications, require greater download and upload speeds than a dial-up modem can provide. Building the necessary infrastructure to support broadband service could be extremely expensive.

But, according to a recent report by the PCRD, the economic benefits of extending broadband coverage in Indiana could outweigh the development costs and generate up to $10 million in growth for some counties over the next 15 years.

Gallardo said broadband access would make counties more attractive to commercial and residential developers, as well as improving quality of life for farmers and other residents.

“In many ways, broadband is the electricity of the 21st century,” said Jason Henderson, director of Purdue extension and associate dean of its College of Agriculture. “In the 1930s, rural electric cooperatives revolutionized the visibility and viability of America’s small towns. If today’s rural communities are to fully participate in a global economy, reliable and readily available broadband access is a necessary component to their success.”

For their part, said PCRD director Lionel J. “Bo” Beaulieu, the extension service is committed to helping communities get “digital-ready” and is planning to roll out educational programming this spring to help entrepreneurs and small-business owners learn how to effectively build their commerce using the technology.

He and Gallardo said the program will be available in April and may be offered through local government, chambers of commerce and other outlets. “There are four main topics with 11 or 12 modules,” Gallardo said. “We’re targeting businesses at the basic and intermediate levels.”

He said it will be available to the general public at a later date. With access an issue, he said some people don’t understand all the ways they can use digital technology.

“There are three critical elements to maximizing broadband: access, affordability and know-how,” he said. “If you’re missing one, you’re at risk of being left behind. We can help develop the know-how; it’s what we’ve been doing for 100 years.”

Beaulieu said the challenge with access is that private internet providers worry they won’t see a return on their investment if they expand into rural areas, where there is the greatest need for their service. He said some municipalities are trying to provide service, but certain states have made that illegal.

The answer might lie with cooperatives or with public-private coordination so no one entity has to shoulder all the risk, he said.

Neither Beaulieu nor Gallardo were aware of any grant programs that might assist rural communities in building the infrastructure necessary to get broadband service delivered. According to Beaulieu, Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch’s office is looking into the issue of broadband delivery.

No one from Crouch’s office returned calls or email requests for information on their efforts, as of press time.