Dunn County broadband “gap analysis” survey almost ready to go live

By LeAnn R. Ralph

BOYCEVILLE —  Do you live in a rural area and have a very slow Internet connection or maybe no Internet connection at all?

You will soon have an opportunity to document that slow or nonexistent Internet connection in Dunn County by taking the “gap analysis” survey.

The survey is intended to help UW-Extension and Dunn County officials to map available Internet service in the county as a way to a provide information that Internet Service Providers could use to apply for grants from the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin to improve rural broadband access.

At the second of three community meetings about rural broadband in Dunn County at Tiffany Creek Elementary, Boyceville, May 23, Jason Hausler, Dunn County 4-H Youth Development Educator with UW-Extension, reported that the “gap analysis” survey is expected to be available online and in paper copy in early June.

The survey is intended to be a comprehensive community survey of residents and businesses, he said.

Hausler said he had hoped the survey would be available a little sooner rather than later, but because it is coming through UW-Extension, the survey must be reviewed and approved by Extension officials before it can be made available to county residents.

The gap analysis of Internet service is expected to be completed by the fall of 2017, Hausler said.

The governor’s budget increases the money available for infrastructure from $1.5 million to $11 million, he said.

Broadband Forward!

Dunn County will be seeking a “Broadband Forward!” designation, Hausler said.

Broadband Forward community certification from the PSC signals that a local unit of government has taken steps to reduce obstacles to broadband infrastructure investment. The PSC has created a model ordinance that satisfies the minimum requirements under Wisconsin statute 196.504, according to the PSC’s website.

Only one county in Wisconsin, Iowa County, has achieved a Broadband Forward designation, Hausler said.

Hausler noted he and several county officials had met with representatives of CenturyLink recently and had been told that Dunn County was one of the better counties to work with regarding permits and permissions for installing telecommunications equipment.

Friends and neighbors

Bob Colson, Dunn County zoning administrator and planner, urged people attending the Tiffany Creek community meeting to talk to their friends and neighbors about the survey.

“We want as many as possible on the map so we have an accurate representation of (broadband) access,” Colson said.

“This is not a Boyceville issue, or a Colfax issue, or a Dunn County issue. It is a rural Wisconsin issue,” Hausler said.

The survey also will ask people what they are willing to pay for Internet service, said Eric Turner, director of the Dunn Count Economic Development Corporation.

Faster and more reliable Internet access is an economic development issue, he noted.

Providing information to let the ISPs know what people are willing to pay for better Internet access will help them make their decisions about where they can extend service, Turner said.

One woman who attended the meeting lives in the Town of New Haven and said she is paying $200 a month for satellite Internet so her teenaged children can have the access they need for school work.

The construction cost alone for fiber cable is $20,000 per mile, said Jim Kusilek of West Wisconsin Telcom/ 24-7 Telcom.

Internet service providers are not limited in the areas they can serve in the way that telephone service providers are limited to certain areas, but the cost of installing the fiber cable does limit where Internet access can be expanded, he said.

Dial-up

Dial-up Internet access became available for consumers in 1994.

According to information Hausler presented, an 800 megabyte movie clip would take 34 hours and 44 minutes to download with a dial-up connection.

The movie clip would download in one hour and 15 minutes with a DSL connection.

With a cable connection, the movie clip would download in one minute and 50 seconds.

And with a fiber connection, the movie clip would download in seven seconds.

According to surveys, 32 percent of households have someone who works from home and uses the Internet or has a home-based business.

All together, 56 percent of businesses and organizations say broadband is essential for remaining in their current locations.

Regarding residential, 56 percent of households say they would definitely or would be likely to relocate if broadband were not available.

Hausler said he had bought a house last year and that while he had found a house he absolutely loved, the Internet availability was poor, so he had bypassed that house and had bought another with better broadband service.

In June of 2016, the Dunn County Board approved a resolution supporting improved broadband service availability, access and utilization in Dunn County.

The first community conversation about improving broadband in Dunn County was held in Menomonie in early April.

The third community conversation will be held in Colfax on June 19.

Hausler and Colson said they also planned to go to town board meetings in Dunn County to speak with township officials about the broadband initiative.