The Rural Fiber-tude to Stay Connected

It’s fair to say that the Internet has become a part of our critical infrastructure, as essential as electric, water, gas, and transportation services. It is irrefutable that communities across the US lacking sufficient Internet access are at a disadvantage and deserve connectivity. After all, without high-speed Internet, next-generation farming and sustainable agriculture practices, e-commerce, e-learning, telehealth, IoT, and other imperatives to 21st Century living, become difficult, if not impossible.

The need for scalable, stable, and reliable, Internet access became essential in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which unleashed unprecedented demand for Internet capacity by residential, enterprise, and wholesale, communications providers. These businesses are also considering moving to the cloud or are already deploying cloud services, both public and private, with hybrid and multi-cloud models. All this is dependent on high-speed, reliable fiber broadband to function effectively and with the capacity to allow virtually limitless growth. 

To meet these customer needs, networks must manage and route data flows at the lowest possible latency to allow customers access without interruption or slowdowns. Most providers have seen dramatic increases in existing and new customers seeking — indeed demanding — additional voice and data services that utilize extraordinary bandwidth as never before.  Clearly, these increased demands are only just beginning. 

To assist carriers that serve all sizes of consumer and enterprise customers, and to meet future demands particularly among rural customers, it’s useful to review various components of the Internet ecosystem that intersect and evolve to bring more reliable connectivity to rural communities.

The Future of Farming

Farms and ranches across the US are prime examples of the increasing need for reliable, high-speed Internet service for economic development, job growth, and quality of life in rural America. Rural service providers are keenly tuned into the importance of broadband connectivity to the livelihoods of farmers and ranchers. Precision agriculture technology requires hardware, software, and connectivity, for data collection and analysis to optimize field-level management by the nation’s farmers and ranchers.  

Real-time questions of today’s farmers include:

• Which fertilizer is best for current soil conditions?
• Where should limited water resources be used?
• Instead of spraying an entire field, which areas require a pesticide application and which do not?  

Indeed, farmers must have data-derived answers to maximize yields, to operate efficiently, and to be competitive. Using GPS, GIS, and remote sensing, today’s smart farms need detailed and accurate data such as soil conditions, temperature, and wind speed, data which is collected and sent to cloud-based systems for analysis and timely decisions. In addition, farms and ranches need real-time access to commodity markets and customers, vendors, and suppliers. This cutting-edge technology relies on broadband connectivity. 

Staying Connected 

Planning and constructing high-speed Internet connections to as many customers as possible is essential. But assuring that all customers’ connections are reliable everywhere and at all times is equally essential.  

When working with businesses in rural areas, it is indisputable that fiber-optic-based Internet service provides the fastest, most-reliable and highest-capacity services. And in addition to networks, every business — big or small, rural or urban — should have a continuity and disaster recovery plan for its communications infrastructure. 

The terms redundancy and diversity are well-known in telecommunications, but they are pillars for ensuring that a business stays connected. The following are among the vital factors that businesses should consider in their network reliability decision-making.  

• Equipment Redundancy: Router, Switch, optical and other equipment that reduces the possibility of a service outage due to a single point of failure.
• Fiber: Redundant fiber paths from the network to the customer location and back to the core network.
• Diversity: Diverse routes going to a single site or piece of equipment or to 2 separate pieces of equipment (no single point of failure).
• Network Monitoring: 24/7/365 network operations center with proactive network monitoring.

Such network reliability is increasingly sought after by customers large and small, whether they maintain a single location in a rural area or conduct operations globally. For example, we provide dual routes of dark fiber from our corporate headquarters located in Omaha to a data center for a Nebraska manufacturer and service provider in agriculture and other industries. As a result, that company can scale its network whenever it needs to and increase capacity without incurring unnecessary additional bandwidth costs. It’s a win-win for this customer, its shareholders, and, of course, Nebraska’s rural economy.