Broadband disband
Marathon County formed a task force in 2020 to tackle broadband access in rural areas - this year that task force will likely disband after federal changes
When Katrina Becker first approached me about the problem of rural broadband — that it was difficult to get and expensive and/or slow if you did in rural areas of Marathon County — I had a hard time selling the story.
For the older set, the internet still seemed like a nice-to-have, not a necessity like phones or electricity.
That was around 2015. Today, that attitude is totally different. It was only a few short years later that I was able to print the story, and a few years after that the county had started some serious efforts around tackling the problem of broadband.
That meant more than simply identifying that there was, indeed, a problem. Previously, committees within the county going back to 2009 had identified a pretty significant gap in broadband access. But besides identifying that yes, there was a problem, not much came of it.
The county as part of its new efforts in 2018 hired a firm called Design9, which came up with a broadband plan. That included $3 million in potential infrastructure, which the county would build and then rent out, according to the plan.
Providers said they were on board. Then COVID hit.
The county instead formed a task force in 2020. They took a facilitating role to work with other providers to build out infrastructure and service to various areas in the county that had poor or no access. Bug Tussel, for instance, received a $3 million grant and the county lent them another $3 million from reserves to build out internet service in the rural parts of the county.
This year, there is a good chance the broadband task force will disband. Is that because the county succeeded in its task to completely build out rural broadband, and now everyone has the access they need?
Not exactly. The story is a bit more complicated.
