Keeping Washington's small towns from dying

Folks living in communities near Spokane, Washington are excited about harnessing the power of high speed internet for their businesses. Unfortunately, due to the lack of reliable high speed service, they're having a tough time taking advantage of these opportunities.

Elaine Rising, who runs "a coffeehouse/used bookstore/art gallery" just 10 miles outside Spokane, must make do with a sluggish dial-up connection. It severely limits her business opportunities, and she's not alone:

That slow pace makes running an Internet-based business from a rural area impossible, though that's exactly the type of business many people believe can help keep America's small towns from dying. 

The only other options for business owners in the greater Spokane region are wireless and satellite connections, both of which suffer from serious flaws:

Wireless Internet service dependent on antenna relies on transmitters positioned in high areas, which can go down in ice and freezing rain. Satellite service can die out during snowstorms or thick cloud cover.

A bigger barrier to wireless service is line of sight. Customers must have a clear path between their Internet antenna and the transmitter serving the area. Trees can be a real killer when it comes to wireless Internet service.

Those businesses that do use wireless internet – like Robyn Doloughan's Columbia Basin Knot Co. – must go to great lengths to avoid service interruptions due to the lack of reliability of wireless:

"Probably like 99 percent of our business is done on the Internet. We can't have a glitch," Doloughan said.

Doloughan purchases her service from two separate providers, Air-Pipe and Ptera, in order to stay connected. But even that isn't enough:

"The week that Air-Pipe went down for a week and Ptera went down, we had to go to town and work from our laptops," she said.

That's no way to have to run a business. Doloughan and her fellow small business owners across the country must have access to affordable, reliable high speed internet for the sake of their livelihoods and the American economy as a whole.

Rural Internet less reliable (Spokesman-Review)