The federal map showing who may be served, underserved or not served by high-speed internet may change for Sunflower County, but it might not be as drastic as some have hoped.
That is according to Sunflower County Economic Development Director Steve Rosenthal, who appeared before the board of supervisors this week to help clear up what he says are some common misconceptions about broadband.
Rosenthal stressed that broadband expansion is important to the county, not only in residential homes where children use the internet to complete homework assignments, but it is also important to economic development.
“More importantly, it is used to help to train and educate and grow our population to where they can be employable,” he said.
Broadband is a broad term of sorts, describing a minimum of 100 megabyte download speed over 20 megabyte upload speed.
Rosenthal said that most industries prefer 400 to 500 over 100 speed, but the reality is that the government sees 100/20 as being served by high-speed internet.
Many parts of Sunflower County are considered to be served, he said, including the city of Indianola, with a few exceptions.
Rosenthal said that another misconception is that the word served only means that the service is available to customers in that area. It does not mean that every household or business has taken advantage of the service.
There are also not any current government programs, BEAM included, that would provide free internet to households or businesses.
“That’s by their choice,” Rosenthal said. “The guideline is based on what’s available to them.”
The roughly $1.2 billion in federal money that has come to the state for broadband expansion is said to be used to fill in the gaps of unserved and underserved tracts by bidding those areas out to providers who will run the lines.
This will only ensure availability, at least in theory, Rosenthal said. It will still be up to the customer to buy the service.
The county recently engaged with a firm HD King Enterprises for $13,000 which said that it will run internet speed tests throughout the county this month in order to attempt to challenge the federal broadband map.
