Minneapolis Star Tribune

Providing high-speed internet in rural MN today is as vital as providing rural electricity was some 80 years ago, said Jason Hollinday, planning director for the Fond du Lac (MN) Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. That’s why the band has taken the unusual step of creating its own broadband company to provide fiber-optic internet service throughout its reservation, about 20 miles west of Duluth. “We’re giving people the tools to live in the 21st century,” Hollinday said. “It’s like when they were electrifying the rural areas.

[Commentary] Broadband isn’t a public good. The term public good comes from economics and definitely doesn’t mean what politicians are talking about when they insist that something needs to be done for “the good of the public.” A pure public good is something that pretty much only government will supply, and they are pretty few in number.

A textbook example is light from a street lamp, because the benefit one homeowner gets from that light doesn’t cause anyone else on the street any less benefit. Immunizing kids is often thought of as another public good. An economic case for subsidizing broadband isn’t even as strong as organized garbage collection, although the electric utility analogy comes into play here, too. Fast internet access isn’t a nice-to-have, advocates say, it’s a must-have like the electricity it takes to run a refrigerator or keep the lights on. Here the problem is not too many competitors going after the same lucrative customers, and eliminating the risk of competition by forming local monopolies. It’s having so few potential customers in sparsely populated areas that no company can justify the capital investment. I may have missed it when I went looking through the list of “market failures” published in my handy economics reference book, but it was hard to come up with one that seemed to apply here. It could be as simple as the local provider correctly assumed customers in a low-density area wouldn’t pay what it would really cost to bring broadband there.

If you are roaming in Savage (MN) without Internet access, Mediacom just bought you some web time. In July, the cable TV company plans to install at least 10 Wi-Fi antennas in central spots around the city, including parks and sports facilities. Only Mediacom subscribers will receive full access to Wi-Fi, but other subscribers can get about 30 minutes for free, an airport-style amenity.

"It's basically like the Wi-Fi you have in your house, but larger and stronger," said Savage's assistant city administrator, Brad Larson. For device holders, it's "just giving you more access to free data." Savage is one of several testing grounds, and the only one in Minnesota, for the community service, which Mediacom hopes to take national. This is also Savage's first community Wi-Fi project, as public connectivity is now limited to city facilities. More users using more devices — from tablets to wearable technology — adds virtual traffic, and more Wi-Fi opens up lanes.