In Maine, a high speed boost for rural health

In a move designed to improve health care in rural Maine, the FCC is giving the state a $3.6 million grant for high speed fiber optic Internet connections in central and western Maine. As a side benefit of the new project, residents who live along these new fiber optic lines will be able to connect to the high speed Internet service.

The grant was spearheaded by the Franklin Community Health Network, a coalition of local hospitals and health centers serving rural Maine, who realize the many benefits high speed Internet can have for the delivery of health care:

High-speed Internet access can help do that by helping health-care providers communicate more quickly with one another, share records electronically, video-conference, communicate digital images and provide opportunity for distance learning, among a host of possibilities.

This is promising news for rural Mainers, who have gone without the health care and other benefits of high speed Internet for too long. Although only about 15% of people in Maine lack high speed Internet connections, this map shows huge swaths of territory that lack high speed access. As the Kennebec Journal notes,

That's a whole lot of Mainers who want to compete in an increasingly technological and global economy, but whose entry into that economy is stymied by a technological brick wall.

These rural residents of Maine are also the folks who stand to lose the most from the proposed Verizon-FairPoint deal, which would leave their high speed Internet future in the hands of a small, financially insecure firm with limited resources to expand high speed access.

The FCC grant rural Maine is an important step in making sure all Mainers enjoy the benefits of high speed Internet. But it will take a more concerted effort -- beginning with the rejection of the Verizon-FairPoint deal -- to make sure these folks don't get left behind.