Above: Darlene Sheuermann, director of Internet operations for Adams Telephone Co-Operative in Golden, looks over the co-op's high-speed Internet equipment. Right: Adams Telephone Manager, Walter Rowland (right) talks to an installer about the wireless Internet system that will be available to customers in parts of Illinois and Missouri in July.

Story and photos by Michelle Reed

The digital divide. It's a new phrase that's becoming common as high-speed Internet service becomes more widely available. It suggests that rural areas are behind the times when it comes to technology, divided from their more advanced urban neighbors. In reality, rural areas are sometimes ahead of urban areas, making any notion of such a divide somewhat a myth.

In fact, rural residents are much less divided from urban areas than they were several years ago. Miles and roads don't matter as much anymore. Today, the Internet gives you access to the world from anywhere. Depending on your job, you may be able to live and work just as easily, and for the same company, in a rural area as in downtown New York City.

The Internet is not dividing rural and urban areas, it's bringing them closer together. Rural residents are using the Internet to their advantage to secure a better quality of life. They are finding ways to improve the quality of schools, hospitals and businesses.

When a rural community's school shuts down, or falls behind city schools, the community will likely start losing — residents. Many rural areas are able to save their schools and provide the

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same educational opportunities as larger schools through distance learning, and the Internet can play a huge part in providing this service to rural schools.

Quincy Christian School, a very small rural school, depends on distance learning to provide a high school curriculum for its nine full-time high school students. It can teach four years of math, science and Spanish through a distance learning program from South Carolina. The program works very simply. Each class is taught by a master teacher to several schools simultaneously. Students at participating schools log-in and watch the class live on a television screen. An advantage of distance learning is that the master teachers instruct classes in their area of expertise. This allows traditional teachers at the schools to focus more on their specified areas and not become overloaded, while giving students a quality education.

According to the United States Distance Learning Association website, "Research studies have been quite consistent in finding that distance learning classrooms report similar effectiveness results as reported under traditional instruction methods." The website also reports that students have positive attitudes toward the learning process offered by distance learning. In addition to its use for pre-kindergarten through high school students, this technology is also used for staff development courses and in-service training, eliminating the need for lost work days by teachers and administration.

But Internet educational opportunities reach beyond students. Adults are logging on to receive corporate, military, government and medical training. Many companies are taking advantage of this convenient method of instruction. Internet training gives businesses the opportunity to offer crucial training and still not lose work days. Some businesses get this training through their local telephone cooperative. For example, Egyptian Telephone Cooperative Association in Steeleville and Adams Telephone Co-Operative in Golden, offer Internet how-to classes through Cyberschool. Found on the cooperatives' web sites, the courses are self-paced, interactive and available to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Another form of Internet education is geared for adults who wish to further their education. Many colleges are now offering classes, degrees and certificates over the Internet. This is great for anyone who doesn't have the time to rush home from work, fix dinner, find a babysitter, drive into the city to the local college, sit for a three-hour class, drive home late and still get up early the next morning for work. Coursework can be done whenever it is convenient.

"Homework" over the Internet is also taking on a whole new meaning when talking about new businesses. Instead of commuting an hour or more to work each day, some rural residents are now able to work from home via the Internet. And some companies see this as a way to improve overall worker productivity. Employees who work with information can work from anywhere as long as the necessary connections for communication are in place. The Internet provides that connection.

Rural areas with high speed access are able to support almost any kind of business. The location doesn't matter. Matt and Becky Dickinson, of rural Carthage, run a system integration business from their home. Becky claims that "without the Internet, we couldn't live in a rural area and still be in business."

The Internet is also becoming an important tool in providing quality healthcare to rural areas. Telemedicine and teleradiology are new ways rural hospitals are offering their patients the best care possible. Memorial Hospital in Carthage, serving primarily Hancock County, uses teleradiology to treat its patients. CEO Keith Heuser says this technology "allows small rural hospitals greater access to sub-speciality care."

The hospital only has a radiologist available four hours a day. But through teleradiology, the hospital's radiological technicians are able to generate images with digital equipment and send the images to specialists via the Internet.

Heuser says the clarity of the digital equipment is even

Internet service can now be offered through cellular phones using a GSM format. The silicon wafer can contain phone numbers, security codes and access limits for the user. Shown here is a GemXplore chip offered by Adams Telephone Co-Operative in Golden.

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Left: miles of tubing on reels like these will bring fiberoptic communication to rural American.

Below: An employee of Voh Behren Electric, Springfield, readies a tube for burying. The tubing is color-coded to denote ownership.

better than a typical X-ray, and specialists send their results back to the hospital very quickly.

Rural hospitals and clinics are now starting to use telemedicine, which allows specialists to view patients in real time, and assist in treatment. For example, a camera and microphone can be placed in a doctor's office and a specialist hundreds of miles away can assist the doctor in diagnosis or treatment, saving the"patient travel time and expenses. The technology can even be used in emergency situations or surgeries.

Apart from teaching you new "skills and saving your life, the Internet can keep you connected to friends and family. American Demographics magazine printed in their March 2001 issue that 56 percent of the U.S. population uses the Internet, and that is expected to grow to between 75 and 85 percent within the next decade.

Although the Internet was originally criticized for damaging relationships, studies have since proven that false. American Demographics reported that "A survey for America Online and American Demographics indicates that social relationships are actually strengthened by online use." E-mail is so fast and easy that it is providing a way for busy individuals to still stay connected. And, despite popular belief, teenagers are not the primary users of e-mail and the Internet. American Demographics claims that American teenagers spend about 30 percent less time on the Web than adults and the average age for use is 39 and climbing. The magazine says "the newest generation of connected Americans look increasingly like the folks who cruise your local Wal-Mart."

Be aware that, like most things, not everything about the Internet is wonderful. The Internet Fraud Complaint Center receives thousands of calls each week. The FBI and Department of Justice have created the center together, and report that online auctions are the number one source of fraud. Products ordered but never received and investment scams were also high on the complaint list.

Broadband services such as digital subscriber line (DSL), T-l, cable, satellite and wireless Internet services are making Internet access faster and more accessible. The service is always on, so you can avoid dial-up delays and busy signals. You can talk on the phone and access the Internet at the same time, at speeds that will blow away traditional dial-up methods.

DSL is a popular service that transforms ordinary phone lines into high-speed data lines. Each connection to the Net is the user's alone and so won't be affected by how many other people are using the wire. A problem with DSL is that its signal can only reach 18,000 feet from the central office. A similar service is T-carrier. It requires a dedicated digital communication line and specialized computer equipment. Carriers can use either basic phone or fiber optic lines, but they must be dedicated. T-l, T-2, or T-3 service transfers information at amazing speeds, fast enough for video conferencing.

But if your telephone company or cooperative doesn't offer DSL or T-l service yet, you may need to explore other options. If you're

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able to receive cable television, you may be able to get Internet access through your cable company. The cable lines can carry more data than regular telephone lines and this service has fast download speeds, although speeds suffer, according to how many people are using the lines.

If cable access is not available there is another option. The National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative has partnered with DirecPC and StarBand to provide two-way, high-speed Internet service through satellite technology. StarBand is the first company to use one satellite antenna to both download and upload information over the Internet, so no additional telephone line is needed.

A method becoming more widely available is wireless Internet service. This involves the same basic technology as that used for cellular phones. You can get information anywhere, anytime. Local multipoint distribution service (LMDS) is a wireless service that requires line-of-sight to function, a problem for some rural areas. Multichannel multipoint distribution service (MMDS) is a little different and can cover about a 35-mile radius. This may be ideal for rural areas.

High-speed Internet service is a problem in both urban and some rural areas, but ironically services may be available in rural areas before some urban areas. Adams Telephone Co-Operative in Golden, offers high-speed Internet service through their subsidiary Adams NetWorks, to their members and residents of nearby Quincy, a much larger city where residents cannot get broadband service.

And Adams Telephone is not the only cooperative offering highspeed service before the bigger phone companies. Surveys show that 66 percent of National Telephone Cooperative Association members will be offering high-speed access by the end of the year. High-speed Internet subscribers in rural areas increased 69 percent in the first half of 2000, compared to a 4 percent increase in urban areas.

Adams Telephone has 4,600 phone subscribers and over 10,000 Internet subscribers. Adams Telephone's wireless service, to be fully implemented in July, will cover eight counties in Missouri and three in Illinois. Walt Rowland, manager of Adams Telephone, says "It doesn't matter how I get access to members, as long as it's high-speed access, and when you're a co-op your priority is John Doe out there on the end of the line. He needs to be able to get the same access."

But why would you need this kind of access? Rowland says "One of the problems people face in rural areas is the ability to work with their peers. They're isolated from them and there is no reason for that today." He says that high-speed access "is crucial from the standpoint of business and economics, and it's a challenge for a cooperative because of the cost of doing it, but it has a huge impact."

When distance no longer matters, the whole world opens up. And when information becomes this accessible, the possibilities are endless. Rowland says, "Whatever you dream, the Internet has totally unleashed everything we can do."

Distance learning is becoming more popular in rural schools due its success as a learning method. Here, Sara Mayfield watches her Spanish II class over a television screen: She interacts in the class by answering questions, taking pop quizzes and asking questions.

For more information If you would like more information on high-speed Internet access, you may want to start by visiting the following web sites. • Prairie iNet wireless rural Internet service: www.prairieinet.com. • StarBand two-way satellite Internet service: www.starband.com • National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative: nrtc.org. • DSL information: www.dsllife.com and www.dslreports.com. • Information on broadband services and security: www.zdnet.com • T-l service information: www.everythingtl.com • The United States Distance Learning Association: www.usdla.org. • American Demographics magazine: www.demographics.com • American Telemedicine Association: www.atmeda.org. • Information on Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT) programs, along with other rural issues: www.rurdev.usda.gov. •For links to electric and telephone co-ops, go to www.aiec.org and click on members.

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