Will broadband come to Highlands?

When will Highlands County have broadband access, and who will pay for it?

That's what 60 people from Highlands, Hardee, Hendry, Okeechobee, DeSoto and Glades counties were asking about Wednesday, at a broadband summit sponsored by Florida's Heartland Rural Economic Development Initiative.

Linda Fuchs, project manager for the Florida Office of Economic Recovery, said $7.2 billion in funding is available from the Obama Administration.

But, she added, "You're going to be competing."

With most of America, as it turns out. Of the entire pot, $6.4 billion is dedicated to accelerate broadband deployment in unserved or underserved areas; $200 million will be for community computing centers, like colleges and libraries.

No one knows how much a broadband network would cost, said Roger Hood, CEO of Heartland Workforce Inc. And, he asks, who would own the infrastructure? A government, a national telephone or cable company?

One fact Hood's more sure of: "If we don't get this grant, it could be 10 years or more before we get broadband."

According to a schedule from Fuchs, initial grant awards could be made in December, and all awards will be made by September 2010.

Why we want broadband

Broadband is a speed-of-light method of sending and receiving data through fiber-optic cables. Fuchs offered an example: a mammogram could be performed in a rural county, and sent by computer to a Tallahassee hospital. Within an hour, a specialist could read it and diagnose a patient.

Even at DSL or cable upload speeds, that process could tie up a computer for several hours.

Business Development Manager Paul McGehee said the Glades Electric Cooperative control center could find rural substation outages much faster with broadband access, and that could be invaluable in a hurricane.

Michelle Phillips pointed out that most people don't call a travel agent anymore; instead, they spend hours on DSL trying to find the best ticket prices. South Florida Community College Vice President Glenn Little said students could be trained here with faster access to distance learning computers, instead of having to leave the community for another college.

Florida Hospital Heartland and the Highlands County Emergency Management Office already have broadband, said Jeff Mechlin, public affairs manager for Embarq. However, he's unsure when it will be available from the telephone company to every household, business and public agency.

There are few incentives for cable or telephone providers to roll out broadband in sparsely populated areas, Hood said. Federal funds might provide the incentive to expand.

One day, broadband may be universally offered to every Highlands County address, Hood said, but someone will have to pay for "the last mile," the fiber optic cable that runs from the main backbone to the user's house. The payer may turn out to be a combination of the resident and the cable, telephone, power and water providers, all of whom benefit.

How fast is it?

TechnologyMaximum download

Speed per second

Dialup56 kilobytes

DSL (T1)1.5 megabytes

T26.3 megabytes

T345 megabytes

T4274 megabytes

A T line is a telephone line for data only. A T1 (digital subscriber line) contains one bundle of 24 copper wires with 64KBPS channels; a T4 contains four T1 bundles. A fiber-optic cable can transmit large amounts of information at the speed of light.