Sunday, August 31, 1997

Internet is having an impact on rural communities

By CARMEN FLEETWOOD / Dow Jones News Service

NEW YORK (Dow Jones News) -- Back when the West was wild, the Pony Express delivered mail.

Today, the West isn't quite as wild. But in Jackson, Mont., where the nearest post office is 30 miles away, horses are still used to get mail. But residents ride over to town hall to check on their e-mail and cruise the Internet.

"It's great to see ranch hands riding into town and tying up their horses to the post at town hall" before entering to go on the Internet, said MacWorld columnist Jim Heid.

Jackson, which has 38 residents and 52 dogs, is one of the towns Heid is visiting in his 7-week, 26-state tour to see first hand how the Internet is changing rural America.

Heid has created a Web site called, "No Back Roads," which he is updating as he continues his travels. He is the author of the recently released book, HTML & Web Publishing Secrets, about publishing on the World Wide Web.

The goal of his tour is to prove that even though a town or community might be in the "boondocks," Internet access breaks down barriers that have made it difficult for that community to communicate with the rest of the world, according to Heid. He added that efforts to bring Internet access to these communities have also brought them closer together as well, contrary to the belief that technology always isolates people.

For many rural residents, the biggest burden so far is being able to access the Internet. Large Internet service providers such as America Online Inc. offer subscribers from these areas access through an 800 or 888 area code number, which costs 10 cents a minute or up to $6 an hour. In contrast, someone in New York City can access the Internet with a local call.

Internet access is a "business that benefits from scale," said Nesbitt Burns Inc. analyst Abi Gami. "It's not effective to put up a T3 line if you can't get enough revenue."

Gami also pointed out that maintaining the infrastructure required for local Internet access also is more expensive than in many populated areas. He noted that companies such as America Online can play off the telephone companies for the best deal in urban areas with more than one telephone carrier. Rural areas, however, generally have only one telephone company and therefore lack that type of competition.

Heid is chronicling the various ways rural towns across America are trying to improve their situation and gain local Internet access.

In Ritzville, Wash., Becky Lyle, a fourth-generation wheat farmer's wife, was working toward her doctorate in entomology when she realized how local Internet access would benefit her community of 1,755 residents. But many of the major services weren't interested in coming to the tiny town.

Lyle was able to finally convince a Seattle service provider, Brigadoon, to offer local Internet access for Ritzville, which is 58 miles southwest of Spokane, Wash. Brigadoon installed a T-1 line and dial-up hardware in the Ritzville school, Heid said. The school and the Ritzville public library offer free Internet access. It's been so successful that 20 percent of the local subscriber fees go back to the town.

It also has brought the community closer together, according to Heid. At the monthly Internet night, Ritzville residents can get together to talk about the Net. Such gatherings can be quite meaningful for neighbors who might be 12 miles apart from each other, Heid explained.

Meanwhile, Lyle has started a Web site, Wheatina's Amber Waves Page, which provides links to wheat future prices, information on wheat farming and an online chat area for women in agriculture.

Heid didn't have to travel far to find another area that found a way to provide local access to the Internet -- his hometown of Mendocino, Calif.

The school district for the northern coastal town runs Mendocino Community Networks, which provides local Internet access. The program, started after a three-year grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to provide Internet access, was completed in 1995. The Mendocino Unified School District then decided to sell Internet access to the community in order to keep the schools connected to the Internet.