RTC receives grant

RONAN - A local company recently received a big chunk of change to revolutionize the way Northwest Montana receives, uses and pays for high-speed Internet connections.

Ronan Telephone Company, a stalwart in the community for 50 years, received a $13.7 million award from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to build a new high-speed middle-mile fiber network that could potentially change everything about how business is done on the Flathead Reservation and in the Mission Valley, RTC Chairman Jay Preston, Jr., said.

"The demand for data services has exploded in the last 15 years," he said. "We feel very honored that we've been selected to help implement this program here in this region. And we're going to do everything we can to not only wisely utilize the resources that have been made available but also to help the region be able to be economically competitive in this sphere with other places."

Nearly $4.7 billion of President Obama's American Reinvestment and Recovery Act has gone to broadening telecommunications infrastructure, specifically in rural and underdeveloped areas, Preston said. The hope is that such a move will allow rural communities to offer competitive, cheaper prices to consumers in areas such as the Mission Valley. Once complete, connections from Missoula to Polson and on up to Kalispell will be reinforced, increasing usage opportunities for people in smaller west shore communities like Elmo and Big Arm, Preston said, in addition to other areas around the Blackfeet Reservation near Glacier National Park. Because Missoula and Kalispell receive more competition in the telecommunications sphere, prices would subsequently be lower in the newly connected, rural areas.

To build, the project could create some opportunities for local construction contractors.

"It should create at least seven, probably more, jobs locally," he said. "We hope to get to work beginning in the spring once the ground thaws."

It's not just consumers who will benefit. The community, Preston believes, will become more connected, hopefully attracting major businesses that formerly have shied away from the area's rural traits. Consistent, high speed Internet connection could change that, bringing in a more skilled workforce with higher paying wages, Preston said. The result could be a bustling local economy that has recessed in the year following the closure of the Plum Creek mill in Pablo.

"Up until just recently, we had to pay $100 per megabyte for upstream services from Missoula," he said. "We have recently been able to negotiate an improvement in that cost for the Mission Valley, cutting that cost down to $50 per megabyte, and it's our understanding that if we could buy services in an urban area like Seattle or Denver, we could probably get those services for $25 per megabyte. So when you look at a rural community like this, some places are paying 12 times the cost that an urban core would. That's a tremendous economic disadvantage when trying to compete for economic development for businesses that need these high speed, modern, cutting edge, forward looking telecomm services."

Other areas that could be affected are schools, hospitals and established area businesses that with higher connectivity can only increase productivity, efficiency and marketability. In the medical realm, Preston said the shift from paper to electronic records and the increased importance of sending electronic images will make high speed Internet of utmost importance, as well as act as another tool to entice highly skilled medical professionals to the area.

"If we could attract companies that bring in professional people or train people locally to do higher skill work, knowledge based work, et cetera, then that can raise the overall standard of living in a community, and [high speed Internet availability] is one of the factors that can allow that to happen," he said. "It's one piece of the puzzle."