Sometimes, all you need to get from point A to point B is a good map.
And while a new map from the Nebraska Regional Officials Council won't show any physical routes, experts are hopeful it could provide a clearer path forward to reliable, affordable internet in rural areas of the state.
The organization's Broadband Speed Testing Initiative asks Nebraskans to record their internet speed by going its . The data is added to a growing map, helping to pinpoint underserved and unserved areas in the state.
Lack of quality internet service — or lack of service altogether — can be a major inhibitor of success in both education and commerce for rural areas, said Tom Bliss, executive director of the Southeast Nebraska Development District.
The development district, which serves 16 southeastern Nebraska counties, regularly hears complaints from rural residents who have insufficient access to the internet, he said.
That can be a factor that affects their entire lives, and as more people work and learn from home, the cracks in the system have never been more apparent.
"When the pandemic hit, that just amplified the need 10 times," Bliss said.
Calls from community members started flooding in, he said. Parents couldn't work, students couldn't learn and businesses couldn't fill orders quickly as increased traffic dragged upload and download speeds to a crawl.
"It's kind of like putting all of that data on a two-lane road when it really needs an interstate," Bliss said.
Those issues could also limit future growth in Nebraska. As more corporations allow remote work, the rural Midwest could be an attractive place to live for those looking to escape cities, but slow internet speeds would prevent that from happening.
Businesses are also less inclined to open locations and do business in areas without access to reliable and affordable internet, Bliss said.Â
By late July, speed tests recorded from nearly 6,000 locations in Nebraska showed nearly one-third had no service or download speeds slower than 10 megabits per second. While user needs vary, the Federal Communications Commission says moderate to heavy internet users with two or more connected devices need at least 12 Mbps of download speed.
Pockets of Nebraska are well served by internet service providers, Bliss said, but he's not optimistic about temporary solutions such as satellite internet because of the cost and poor coverage.
Michael Burger, who owns a screen printing business near Deshler in Thayer County, said his internet speeds are often insufficient for conducting online commerce.
Burger said the vast majority of his business occurs online through email orders, which allows him to keep the business in a rural area. But because of slow internet speeds, it can be a struggle to communicate with clients in a timely manner.
He employs eight people at Victory Too, and they often spend a big chunk of time every day waiting for things to load, sapping productivity.
The lost time could cost Burger as much as $6,000 a year in wages, he said.
While work in Nebraska has focused on improvements, and the state used some CARES Act funds to shore up rural broadband, the ideal solution would be to have fiber-optic internet to every home, Bliss said.
But that's an uphill battle, said Christopher Mitchell, director of the community broadband networks program at the Institute for Local Self Reliance.
“The challenge is that most Americans really only have the choice of getting service from the biggest internet companies," Mitchell said, which sets up functional monopolies in many areas of the country.
Local governments are closest to the problem, he noted, but many don't have the power to take on the massive corporations that control internet access.
On the state and federal levels, consumer protections on broadband have been similarly toothless, he said, because while providers have considerable funds and political power, there is no centralized lobbying group for rural internet consumers that has enough power to fight back.
“There’s no one in the Capitol whose job it is every day to represent the interests of small businesses and consumers on broadband," Mitchell said.
And so companies continue to dictate terms to the market, instead of the other way around, he said. In other heavily rural states such as North Dakota and Montana, public power districts and co-ops can serve as internet service providers, which keeps costs down and encourages investment in infrastructure.Â
Across the country, Mitchell said, more than 100 public power entities and cooperatives already provide high-quality broadband access at a lower price to rural customers. In Nebraska, however, a state law prohibits that avenue.
"Nebraska has refused to use the most basic obvious tool to solve the problem," Mitchell said.
He likened the situation to when rural counties in Nebraska first received electricity. Those wires were constructed with government funding, he said, and without that support, there might still be communities and families without sufficient access to electricity today.
And that's where the map comes in. Instead of using maps that are created by the internet providers themselves, as the current FCC maps are, the Nebraska Regional Officials Council seeks to create a more reliable map that shows the holes in quality coverage.
While some areas have at least nominal competition among multiple providers, he said, that doesn't always lead to results for the consumer.
“The reason we are pursuing that speed test in the first place is a lot of time federal and state funds are limited to regions where there’s no competition.
"A lot of times their needs just aren't met," he said. "Their needs are overlooked for larger communities."
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Test your speed
The Nebraska Regional Officials Council wants to gather broadband speeds from rural and urban residents from border to border.
From any internet-enabled device, go to speedtestne.org