Rural electric cooperatives and not “small cell” deployment powered by 5G networks, may be the solution to closing the digital divide, according to Jonathan Chambers, former chief of the Federal Communications Commission’s Office of Strategic Planning.  

Speaking at the regional conference hosted last week here by Next Century Cities, a broadband advocacy group for cities, Chambers suggested repurposing rural electric cooperative infrastructure for fiber networks.  

“The nation was able to build electricity to every home in rural America. That was the objective starting in the 1930s and the country was able to do so,” Chambers said. “It’s less expensive to build a fiber network than an electric network.”

A rural electric cooperative is a not-for-profit organization owned by the community that it serves. Many of these organizations started more than 80 years ago with a goal of building electric services to those rural communities that utility companies refused to serve.  

Just as with broadband today, rural communities in America struggle to gain access to electricity because the low-density areas proved to be uneconomical for businesses. “We can afford it as a nation to build fiber everywhere. We can afford it if we set the objective,” Chambers said, projecting confidence in the nation’s ability to get connected.  

Chambers emphasized the importance of local and community action to solve the divide, just as it solved the electric divide with community-owned rural electric cooperatives. “I don’t wait around for Congress, or the FCC, or the USDA either -- this has to come from the community,” Chambers said.

Harry Collins, a teacher from Letcher County, Kentucky – a town devastated by the collapse of the coal industry – said that there is no broadband at all in the lower part of Letcher County, an area with 30 percent of the county’s population. “It’s basically a wasteland-- there is no connectivity,” Collins said. “We have people paying $85.95 for 1 Mbps (Megabit per second). That is capped in that area.” In other areas, he said, there are people paying nearly $190 for a 10 Mbps connection.  

“We need to give them some sort of format to connect with the outside world,” Collins said. Collins described harassment he experienced when trying to pilot a program to set up broadband for the lower portion of his country. According to Collins, a representative from a small cable company paid the city a visit to criticize them. “He called us all liars and then he called us politicians,” Collins said. He said, however,that the community backed Collins’ efforts and  “shooed ‘em out the door.”   

Collins plans to move forward with his plan to build a local wireless network for the community without expecting or relying on assistance from the private sector.