Meeting tackles challenges of providing Internet in rural areas

Arkansas state Rep. Mathew Pitsch speaks during a meeting of the Joint Committee on Advanced Communications and Information Technology on Monday at the University of Arkansas  Community College at Hope in Texarkana.
Arkansas state Rep. Mathew Pitsch speaks during a meeting of the Joint Committee on Advanced Communications and Information Technology on Monday at the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope in Texarkana.

The challenges and opportunities of getting broadband Internet throughout Arkansas was the topic of discussion at Monday's Joint Committee on Advanced Communications and Information Technology.
Held in the newly-opened Professions Building at the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope in Texarkana, Arkansas senators and representatives heard from broadband and fiber optic providers, who spoke about the challenges of overcoming costs to get Internet access to rural areas.
Stacy Eads, who was representing Hope Community TV and Wehco Video, said, "It costs a lot to build fiber. And in a rural community, having to get it from point A to point B is a challenge."
She said her company's biggest business is broadband, with UACCH and Springhill School District signed on as fiber optic customers.
"We love fiber, so do our customers," Eads said. "It's got advantages. It's where our future is, and we want to be able to provide that."
The company has much fiber optic cable buried underground, especially around Hot Springs, said Bob Young, vice president of engineering for Wehco Video. He said the state has been cooperating with them laying the lines in the right of way, but there are issues with small electric providers charging more per pole to run lines overhead. Eads said the pricing went from $5 to $27 per pole.
"It just makes it where we can't go with that," Young said.
Johnny Ross with Walnut Hill Telephone Co. told of his company's challenges with broadband.
"When you start down the highway or rural road, there's maybe five houses down there, you think you'll get five customers," Ross said. "You'll do good to get two and a half customers. People 30 years old or less have a wireless connection. They do their work on a cellphone as a whole, the younger generation is wireless."
Cost is also a factor for his customers, he said, as many may not be willing, or able, to pay for the service. "It's got to be something a household can afford and they want," Ross said. "That's the problem. Pricing."
David Wall, general manager of Texarkana's CableOne, said they reach out to rural areas including Fouke, but the cost was a hindrance to them as well.
"For us, it's a challenge of balancing the cost for us to to expand our services," Wall said. "A lot of times in expanding that plan, a pocket of homes that sit in a particular place, by itself on its own, probably justified building it but to get to it it's the cost of getting to that particular point, that's the challenge."
Rep. Jim Dotson replied, "Kind of what we are trying to look at and see is identifying those pockets and those areas and what potentially the state might be able to do to that section."
The next Joint Committee meeting is Feb. 19 in Monticello.

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