McLean County is one of five Illinois counties chosen to take part in Broadband Breakthrough, an effort to improve internet access in rural areas of the county.
The county has launched a public survey it hopes will unlock state and federal dollars to reduce the digital divide.
County assistant administrator Anthony Grant said the technology has taken longer to get to rural areas because providers see higher costs to serve fewer customers.
“Getting access in some of these smaller rural communities and especially those homes that do not live in a municipality it’s not real profitable alone in regard to the internet service providers to run fiber optic cables into that area,” Grant said during a Thursday news conference at the McLean County Government Center.
The Illinois Soybean Association and the Illinois-based Benton Institute for Broadband & Society plan to use the survey data to help the county work on securing government funding earmarked for broadband infrastructure.
The other Illinois counties taking part in the effort are Edgar, Hancock, Ogle and Schuyler.
Anna Zeigler, McLean County Farm Bureau assistant manager, likens the internet expansion in rural areas to electrification efforts a century ago. She said some parts of the county have to rely on line-of-sight technology, where internet service is transmitted from — in one case — the top of a grain elevator.
“If the weather is bad, if something is blocking that signal, they have no internet or very slow internet. That’s what some areas of our county are dealing with currently,” Ziegler said.
Grant said southern and northeastern McLean County is where internet service is typically the least reliable.
County Farm Bureau president Brian Dirks said the lack of reliable internet is especially tough on farmers who rely more and more on precision technology.
“They’ll get to an area in their field and they’ll just lose their guidance system and once you lose that, then how do you do the best job you can out in the field,” Dirks said.
The survey will help the county and internet service providers determine what’s feasible and how much it will cost, said Grant.
He said the county plans to seek funding through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the state’s broadband expansion program called Connect Illinois, and the federal infrastructure bill Congress passed in 2021 that is expected to have funding available starting in 2025.
Grant said if a local funding match will be required, the county will work with the service providers to help cover that cost.
A recent USDA report estimates expanded rural broadband could result in $46 billion in economic benefits annually.
The survey is open until March 31. It's available on the county website.
