Internet access a utility, not a luxury

Not too many years ago, high-speed Internet access was considered almost a luxury by the public and government alike.

It has since gained widespread acceptance as a necessary utility with the power to educate, entertain, advance and drive commerce. Students require access, businesses find it hard to compete without the service, and many of the essential tools for government rely on the net.

Now, tiny Orland, in Steuben County, is on the verge of becoming a wireless Internet hub due to a pioneering partnership with Fort Wayne-based Internet service provider, Indiana Data Center.

Town officials recently signed a 10-year lease agreement with Indiana Data Center that will permit the provider to install antennas on the town’s water tower in exchange for several free accounts for government offices.

Residents will be able to contract with Indiana Data Center for wireless service at a nominal monthly fee.

The demand for Internet access has sparked creative and innovative efforts to bring it to places unreachable by conventional means. Just as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s creation of the Rural Electric Administration in the 1930’s helped to transform America’s technology landscape, similar public and private initiatives today are bringing high-speed Internet access to Americans living outside urban areas.


The issues presented by both eras are strikingly similar. Although nearly 90 percent of urban residents had electricity by the 1930s, only 10 percent of rural Americans did. Private utility companies, who supplied electric power to most of the nation's consumers, argued that it was too expensive to string electric lines to isolated rural farmsteads.

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