Improving Rural Kentucky’s Economies at the Speed of Light
How it all works together, broadband, government, technology, and economic development combine to create transformational economic change in rural Kentucky.
When you think about the United States Department of Agriculture, you probably think about farms, cattle, corn, and crops. You probably don’t think about high speed data transmission via fiberoptic cable networks. The reality is, the USDA is both in the business of agriculture, and in the business of broadband. As their programs have been critical in enabling rural communities to attain high speed broadband access.
Fiberoptic telecommunication is the technical process of converting data into light pulses that travel through glass fibers at the speed of light and transmitting that data to an end device by a direct or wireless connection. Fiberoptics make video streaming, remote wifi, driverless technology, gaming and e-commerce possible anywhere there is a connection. Light speed, enabled by fiberoptic cable to the premises can take a remote rural legacy economy and plug it in to the global commerce market, transforming and reinvigorating a region’s economy at relative light speed! But the problem for rural America is that there are a lot of places without fiberoptic networks. Take a look at this US map.
This was the nation’s fiberoptic network backbone in 2015. The whitespaces indicate regions where there was no high speed broadband infrastructure available. These places are essentially locked out of the digital global economy. They can’t even reliably access online educational resources, let alone support technology-based businesses. The USDA identifies rural regions that are underserved by telecommunications infrastructure.
Under the Obama Administration, the USDA designated 970 US places as “strike force” areas, to enable their access to new economy resources like high speed broadband. One of these areas was Jackson County, Kentucky.
In 2015, 73 Kentucky counties were designated to receive targeted USDA support through USDA’s StrikeForce for Rural Growth and Opportunity Initiative. Soon thereafter, President Obama designated a region of eight counties in the state’s southeast corner as one of the country’s first five Promise Zones. Under these designations, USDA works with local partners to leverage federal resources to improve the overall quality of life in the region. One of these partners was People’s Rural Telephone Cooperative who provides telecommunications infrastructure to the region.
In 2015, People’s Rural Telephone worked with the USDA to use the its Broadband Initiatives Program to build a state-of-the-art, fiber-to-the-premise network to create an environment in which new economy businesses could establish themselves. People’s Rural aggressively built out this network in eastern Kentucky over the next few years. And what happened next was unbelievable…
In just four years, Jackson County went from a blank spot on the broadband map to a one light town with some of the fastest internet in the US. And what does that do for a rural economy? The county with a declining manufacturing and production base was…
Recognized as a smart rural community, with one of the fastest fiberoptic networks in the nation. The Industrial Development Authority of Jackson and McKee Counties started promoting the county to private sector businesses. Working with the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, they were able to attract Teleworks USA, who focuses on providing technical support capabilities to major companies.
With a high performing broadband network, Teleworks USA could provide premier technical support to companies like Apple, from Jackson County, and 9 other eastern Kentucky counties. This resulted in a rapid transformation of the region’s economy, as Teleworks has created nearly 3,300 jobs in eastern Kentucky, with over $70 million dollars in economic impact for the region. And the roles are higher paying than jobs lost in the past, and provide a career path into management for those initially hired.
A partner like EKCEP who is focused on modernizing the workforce through retraining, collaboration with entrepreneurs, and coordinated communications is a vital asset and has led to a wealth of success in the Bluegrass state.
Jackson County, Kentucky is a perfect example of how broadband access is transformative to a rural economy. It also illustrates the how multiple stakeholders from the public sector and the private sector have to collaborate to affect economic change. When that collaboration occurs, and the workforce training capacity exists, a rural economy can experience a wholesale economic transformation in less than 5 years.
Now evolving from manufacturing and production to technical support is good, but some critics may say that’s not radically different than a rural-call center strategy. But just down the road from Jackson County, a well funded group of entrepreneurs are exploring Blockchain technology as a potential to redefine and spark regional entrepreneurship.
It’s not too unrealistic to think that in just a couple of years a few promising and tech focused individuals from Eastern Kentucky could set up shop in or near Jackson County with a blockchain-based startup. In fact, a business that we’ll feature in the future started an unlikely development shop just 30 minutes east of Jackson County. Pretty revolutionary, eh? Check out the full story, and other positive stories of rural economic change at the Rural American Technology Revolution blog (TheRatr.com)!