Editor's note
Neil Huddleston describes running for the school board of Brownsburg, Indiana, on this week’s Who Gets What? podcast. He’s  followed controversies, such as critical race theory, as well as transportation of students and how to deal with rapid population growth. Hear for yourself the trials and tribulations of a novice non-politician in a fractured local election. That’s Who Gets What? at mortonjohn.libsyn.com.
High speed Internet is no longer a luxury service. It has become a necessity for businesses and households. Covid taught us that when workers started connecting online to their jobs, students to their schools, patients to their doctors, and shoppers to their stores.

As reported by The Center Square (8/31/22) — “Indiana has been awarded $187 million for broadband infrastructure…which will provide high-speed internet to more than 50,000 Hoosiers who lack access to adequate service. This round of funding is in addition to previous grants of $350 million for improving broadband access provided by the American Rescue Plan and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.”

Got that? $537 million to provide high-speed (100 megabits per second) connections to currently underserved Hoosier communities. These funds are administered by OCRA, a.k.a. the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs.

Where should these $537 million go? The Census Bureau offers 92 answers to that question. However, we can summarize as follows: the American Community Survey’s 2022-5-year version found 352,156 Indiana households (13.3% of all Hoosier households) did not have broadband service.

Within the state, Marion County had 50,600 such households, or one of every seven households in the state. Add in Lake, Allen, St. Joseph and Elkhart counties and you have more than a third of all broadband-less Hoosier households. Does that sound like an OCRA program for rural Indiana?

Instead of looking at the number of households without broadband, consider the percentage of households in that situation. Now, we’re talking about LaGrange, Crawford and Switzerland counties, each with more than a quarter of all their households without broadband.

Where’s the priority? In those counites with the most number of broadband-less households or the greatest percentage (incidence) of being without broadband?

But wait! On September 9th this year, Census, in conjunction with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), produced an experimental set of county data that revealed 750,351 without broadband, more than twice the number reported above.

Where we had just two counties above a third of the county without broadband, now we see 55 counties in that condition.

Yes, these are experimental results using a broader methodology, seeking, though a variety of federal sources, to get a more complete figure. A cynic might think seeking a higher figure is to satisfy the interests of the NTIA’s clientele in the broadband business?

Does this mean we must double the budget for broadband connectivity? Oh happy day for the contractors, the companies that will do the work, to say nothing of the customers of those internet service providers.

We’ll know the real magnitude and costs of this endeavor better only when the OCRA contractors get into the field.
Morton J. Marcus is an economist formerly with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. His column appears in Indiana newspapers, and his views can be followed his podcast.

© 2024 Morton J. Marcus

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