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Rural Minnesota Steps Ahead in Wireless Derby
By Tom Robertson, Minnesota Public Radio
March 2001
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While high-speed Internet connections are already available in the Twin Cities, for many rural Minnesotans, the Internet moves at only one speed: slow. But several outstate companies are now offering connections that are not only fast, but wireless, and they say their services are helping to bridge the so-called "digital divide" between urban and rural dwellers.
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THE INTERNET WAS ONCE TOUTED as a way to level the playing field for rural communities wanting to compete in the global economy. But these days, having a simple dial-up Internet connection is not enough. Communities are clamoring for high-speed and high-capacity lines. The problem, though, is some telephone companies have been reluctant to invest in upgrading outdated infrastructure. It's left people in communities like Crookston in northwest Minnesota, frustrated.
"We're at a disadvantage up here," says Jeff Burgess, CEO of fiberglass manufacturer, Phoenix Industries.
Phoenix makes fiberglass parts for companies like Ford, Chrysler and General Electric. The company wants to bid on projects and provide quotes over the Internet, a process that requires downloading large specification files. Burgess says with slow, dial-up connections it can sometimes take hours.
"It just takes forever to load it. So they're actually just burning it onto CDs and mailing it to us. It's a pain," he says.
Telephone companies estimate it would cost between $12 and $15 million to wire Crookston with fiber-optic cable and install other necessary equipment, and the process could take years to complete. But a phone company in Halstad, Minnesota has offered Crookston a wireless solution that it says is cheaper and quicker. Company spokesman Ron Laqua says it will cost Halstad Telephone less than $50,000 to deploy wireless Internet that will reach anyone living within a 10-mile radius of Crookston. And he says it will be ready this summer.
"We're kind of cutting our teeth on this one. It's a new way of providing service. We've been more of a wired-type service, and so wireless will be a little bit of an education for us. But we are picking the best technology that we think is available for the price," according to Laqua.
The technology works like this: Companies set up a base antenna that's connected to a high-speed, high-capacity fiber-optic line. Signals travel via radio waves to a series of antennae that can be placed on water towers, grain elevators or any other tall structure. Anyone living within about seven miles of one of those antennae can subscribe to the service.
Fees for home use are similar to the cost of DSL service - about $40 a month. Businesses are charged more - upwards of $100 monthly. The only catch is installation costs anywhere from $450 to $1,000.
In a makeshift office in Hutchinson in southwestern Minnesota, a company called XtraTyme Technologies is building new office space for its growing staff. Founder and CEO Kyle Ackerman predicts wireless Internet will be commonplace in Minnesota within a year.
"We are one of the few companies saying, raising our hands saying we are going to be the first state to have the entire state connected with a wireless broadband network," he says.
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"As it stands right now, there are very few people who think that today they need to access the Internet or high-speed data transfer while on the road. And if you look back to the early '80s, mid-'90s, there were very few people who thought they needed a telephone with them on the road," says Griffiths.
Across the room sits Michael Mimbach, a self-described computer geek. Mimbach is something of a prodigy. By age 15 he was tearing apart computers, and before he turned 20, he was doing consulting work for large Twin Cities companies interested in setting up inter-office wireless systems. It was Mimbach who developed the software that runs the system used by XtraTyme. He says its best feature may be its speed.
"For once, we're ahead of the metro, the cable modems, we're faster than DSL, we've got better latency than them, and we're in rural America," says Mimbach.
Mimbach says the wireless Internet technology is turning the tables on the so-called digital divide. "It's completely flipping it. It's leveling the playing field, and it's wonderful," he says.
One of XtraTyme's first customers was Brian Sheehan, who runs a computer consulting and software development firm in Bird Island, about 100 miles west of Minneapolis. Sheehan says his business desperately needed high-speed Internet. He says the wireless system came along just in time.
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Across the street, Rob Saunders runs a CPA firm, which used to get by with a slow, dial-up connection at a single work station. Now, every computer in the office is connected to wireless, and Saunders says his productivity has increased.
"It's made the technology and the Internet usable, which I don't think it was over the phone lines. It just was so slow that we couldn't use it; it was a tool of last resort. Now it's a tool of first resort."
Wireless Internet is not limited to the southern part of the state. A northwestern Minnesota company in Hallock, Rural Access, has built up a 500-square-mile wireless network spanning about a 50-mile-wide swath from just south of Grand Forks up to the Canadian border.
It encompasses more than a dozen communities, and chief operating officer Jim TerWee says they'll add 18 more towns by this fall. TerWee says it's all being done with little or no advertising.
"It's really ironic. I've had several businesses in my life and this is the first business where we actually have towns that come and court us to get access into their community. They basically beg and plead to come. It's the most unusual thing I've ever seen," says TerWee.
State government is also taking action to fuel this quiet wireless-Internet revolution in rural Minnesota. Last month the state awarded Technology Catalyst grants totaling $1 million to nine local governments interested in bringing high-speed wireless access to areas that don't have it. The Legislature is considering a bill that would continue the grant program.
Cutting the Cord | Wireless' Lab Rats | The Wireless Tether | Rural Minnesota's Place in the Wireless Derby | A Delicate Balance | Home
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