$13.7 million grant to improve rural Internet connection
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RONAN — It’s not everyday that a local company receives millions of dollars in grant money from the federal government.
But last week, the Ronan Telephone Company became the recipient of a $13.7 million stimulus grant called the Montana West Project.
The project will provide the Missoula and Kalispell corridor and the Blackfoot Reservation with the fiber optic infrastructure necessary for Internet services to offer high speed, broadband internet to clients.
“There’s a lack of real competitive broadband,” RTC Director of New Business Jerry Beeks said. “The more broadband we have available will drive down costs and provide access to people.”
In short, RTC received the funds to make fast, affordable Internet available to 31,000 homes and 3,200 businesses.
“It will improve our ability to provide our own services and for any other provider to provide these services,” RTC president Jay Preston Jr. explained.
The construction of the infrastructure will span across 2.5 years, putting the completion date in the middle of 2013. Preston estimates that the construction will create a minimum of seven local jobs. But the possibilities of economic development are endless.
“It will make this area more competitive for other economic development,” Preston explained. “That’s the focus of the program. That’s our goal.”
Preston explained that under the present system, an Internet service provider can provide one megabyte of service to Browning for $300. Up until recently the cost of providing one megabyte of Internet to Ronan was $100, while in bigger cities, the companies pay approximately $25 per megabyte.
“When you look at providing these data services,” Preston said. “It’s very unlikely that the area can be competitive with these prices.”
Preston noted that Internet providers will be able to provide data services locally for prices similar to those in cities.
Two main components of the grant include the connection of 30 community anchor institutions, including schools, libraries and public safety institutions and collaboration with the Health Information Exchange Montana.
HIEM is an organization that seeks to increase bandwidth to assist medical professionals in their treatment of patients. With the new and improved fiber optic system, hospitals will be able to transfer patient records in a secure and timely manner.
Chief Operating Officer at St. Luke Community Hospital Steve Todd explained the hospital hopes to collaborate with the Ronan Telephone Company to make this initiative a reality.
Besides transferring large quantities of medical data and records securely and instantaneously, Todd explained that the program will also be more cost effective.
With access to complete and accurate patient records, healthcare professionals are less likely to repeat unnecessary tests and procedures.
Beeks noted that connecting local institutions, tribes and hospitals with high speed Internet was a priority in the grant.
“The way things are going with technology, we’re going to need more and more high speed connectivity as time goes on,” Beeks said. “So we are just building for the future.”
Although he couldn’t quantify exactly how local economies would benefit, Beeks suggested “it can only help.”
“Anytime you have improved, lower cost access to the Internet, it’s going to stimulate business and enable new ventures,” he said.
