by Leigh Fatzinger

Today, I had the opportunity to speak to a number of broadband service providers and broadband adoption advocates at a conference in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The title of my talk was simple: Social Media Applications, Adoption and Use. I came into the session with a preconceived notion about something most of us take for granted: seamless access to broadband services at both home and the office that enable and drive everything I was about to share in my talk.

I’ve founded two companies, both based in downtown Seattle, Washington. When we complain about broadband, it’s generally because a fiber optic cable has been cut during construction on the street, or the router in one of our offices has decided to take an early lunch. In either case, services are generally restored within the amount of time it takes us to find the number of our broadband provider. The rest of the time? It’s 50 Megs of Spotify-streaming-Vimeo-watching-video-conferencing-goodness.

One must leave a dense urban center like Seattle to realize that not all communities are as fortunate when it comes to broadband. In fact, we’re the exception. There are big dollars, politics and regulatory hurdles behind bringing these services to homes and offices. Many communities around the country are just beginning to face these hurdles to obtain a service that most urban centers take as a given.

It’s difficult to imagine. In a country as prosperous as ours, hundreds of communities cannot stream video into their classrooms over the Internet. Libraries have the equivalent of a card catalog in terms of access to the nearly infinite number of knowledge resources the web has to offer. Hospitals cannot send imaging and radiology information to specialists for instant review and consultation in larger medical centers.

And it’s a cycle. Communities without universal broadband adoption are at a disadvantage when attempting to attract companies that create jobs for people who will build homes and spend money – in other words, create a tax base that enables communities to afford the cost of deploying broadband.

Social media and broadband go hand in hand. Broadband availability and adoption impact the use of social media. At the same time, social media has the opportunity to impact broadband adoption, leveling the playing field between urban and rural centers.

One audience member spoke of a storeowner in a small Illinois community who served a local audience, but decided to create a Facebook Page in an attempt to expand geographic reach. The effort was so successful, a broadband provider serving the same area used her example as a model to commence its own social media program. Growing businesses create more tax revenue for the community. More tax revenue for the community motivates broadband providers to take deployment risks. As this person said, “it’s a small town, everybody knows everybody else.” It need only start with one success story, well told, to catch the attention of others who are willing to take the same steps. The business has since hired an outside consultant to more tightly integrate social media into their marketing strategy.

Astonishingly, many elected officials do not see the value of widespread broadband deployment. Yet. One lobbyist asked me how to communicate the importance of broadband to their legislature, when many of the officials themselves don’t know how to use a computer. (This had to have been exaggeration, right?) The key word, I explained to her, is ‘elected.’ We are in the early stages of an era that requires elected officials to listen to their constituencies across a multitude of platforms. Even without ubiquitous access to broadband, it takes just a few individuals with any access at all – even from an internet café – to gain the attention of politicians who have the ability to allocate funds, grants or tax relief to broadband providers who are willing to take deployment risks. I explained that in social media, public discourse instantly becomes public record. Those politicians ‘on record’ as having listened and responded to their consistencies will likely remain in office. Those who don’t likely won’t.

Broadband offers communities unfettered access to the outside world, and at the same time, closer, deeper connections with those in their own backyards. Access enables and enhances education, healthcare, employment and commerce. While social media is simply a set of applications and platforms, its widespread use and adoption is facilitated by broadband. Closing the divide between the level of access available to those in urban centers and those in rural areas pays dividends at all levels – the election of leaders who listen, economic development for struggling communities, greater opportunities for our students. It signals the democratization of information and opportunity.

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