Broadband helps rural North Dakota communities, though some lag behind

In North Dakota and beyond – the internet is as common in everyday education as the chalkboard. “It’s our job to teach them to use (the internet) responsibly,” Midway (ND) Superintendent Roger Abbe said, “whether they have access at home or not.” Midway’s classrooms are an example of the benefits local communities reap from a high-speed internet connection. Jason Keating, a high school principal at Midway, said students there are learning about psychology, agriculture, astronomy and the like through the ND Center for Distance Education, and Keating himself teaches a math course that’s broadcast to students in Hillsboro (OR). That all depends on strong broadband in the state – the kind developed by federal programs, telecommunications companies and a state with its eye on the future.

ND officials argue that the state has done well in the internet age. Duane Schell, the state’s chief technology officer, cited an internet database that he said shows 100% of ND residents have “access to mobile broadband,” which means they can tap into the internet wirelessly. And 90%, he said, have access to one-gigabit broadband, a particularly fast service. A May report from the state’s information technology department shows ND was recently listed second in the country for “internet access” (as of Dec 2019, it was ranked 11th, with MN ninth and SD 43rd). Schell said ND’s high spot on the list has to do partly with local providers working hard to take advantage of federal programs to help expand ND’s network. The state’s geography helps, too; ND is a comparatively easy state to link up to the internet – flat or rolling fields in many areas. “It’s a lot easier to plow fiber in North Dakota than it would be in a state like Montana or Wyoming,” Schell said. 

But for the remaining 10% of the population that struggles to connect with fixed high-speed internet, Schell sympathizes. Part of the problem, Schell said, is in rural areas around major ND communities. “There’s a common provider that exists in those regions, and that provider has not been as aggressive in those federal programs as the rural telcos have,” he said. “The rest of the story is…(in) some of our most rural and remote areas. As a provider, (telecommunications companies) are out there to make a living. In some of these rural and remote areas, the business case (to expand) has become exceedingly challenging.”