“Electricity is a modern necessity of life and ought to be found in every village, every home, and every farm in every part of the United States.”

– Franklin D. Roosevelt

Not many people alive today remember electrification of rural America in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Rural Americans wanted electricity, but stockholder-owned power companies would not budge. There was no profit in it, they said. They could get more customers in a city block than in 100 square miles of farmland.

On May 16, 1938, a group of supporters met to formally establish Ozarks Rural Electric Cooperative. When it came down to actually getting electricity to these rural areas, local people were responsible. It’s hard for us to imagine that these types of changes were taking place only 75-80 years ago in our area.

But the time has come for another major historical change. The time has come for fast, reliable Internet in rural America. Just as the lack of electricity kept lives primitive and limited productivity in the 30’s and 40’s, the lack of rural Internet access is doing the same for the families today.

Rural America deserves better. And once again, better will come at the hands of a local cooperative.

Broadband, defined by the Federal Communications Commission as 25 megabits per second (Mbps) download and 5 Mbps upload speeds, is no longer a luxury, but a necessity.

Arkansas and Oklahoma are underserved when it comes to broadband access, raking 28th and 44th, respectively. Only 58.5% of Arkansans have access to wired Internet access of 25 Mbps or faster. In Oklahoma, 67% have access to speeds of 25 Mbps or faster.

In the 2010 national census, only 19% of the country’s population was identified as rural compared with 44% for Arkansans. But rural populations continue to decline in Arkansas and around the nation. Is this due to the lack of broadband available in these areas?

If these areas were served with the nation’s best available broadband networks, would it allow people to continue living in these areas, possibly providing them the ability to work from home or feel more connected with urban areas? We think so. And we love rural America. We don’t want to see its population decline.

Rural Americans want broadband, but stockholder-owned companies will not give it to them because there is no profit in it. They can get more customers in a city block than in 100 square miles of rural land. But gigabit broadband will eventually come to the rural areas of northwest Arkansas and northeast Oklahoma. And it will not be a giant corporation that brings it.

Sound familiar? 

The time is definitely right for broadband in rural America. It’s time for rural America to be served the way it deserves to be served.