As we have developed the Rural Telecommunity Center concept and worked with communities to determine whether the concept fit their particular situation a variety of questions have been asked. To help as you determine whether the Rural Telecommunity Center is a direction for your community to go, we have answered some of the more frequent questions asked by communities just like yours.
1. Is our community too small to be considered as
a viable location to find a Rural Telecommunity
Center?
No! The important consideration is not how few people
reside in your community. Instead, consider the size of all
the communities in your region and your community's
commitment to see economic, education, business or health
care change. For example, the community of Bloomfield,
Nebraska has a population of 1200, but more importantly they
are a community who believe that telecommunications and
technology are a way for the community to attract new
businesses, families and support individuals who wish to
start businesses or market their products to a wider area.
The same can be said for the community of Pratt, Kansas whose
population is approximately 7000.
In both Bloomfield and Pratt, there are ten to twelve
communities that would also be impacted by the Rural
Telecommunity Center. Each of those communities have
individuals who would be users of the various technologies
employed by a telecommunity center. Telecommunications will
always allow the Center to view an entire region almost as if
a virtual community had been created that has a population of
more than 20,000 people.
2. We already have an Internet provider in town,
would the Rural Telecommunity Center compete with that local
individual?
Absolutely not! The Rural Telecommunity Center concept as
described in it's most generic sense visualized a regional
rural area that had no access to any of the advanced
technologies of Internet, imaging, interactive
videoconferencing, telecommuting or telemarketing. In fact
one of the purposes for the community assessment is to seek
out all of the existing or planned investments in identified
technologies and to work closely with those entities to
either share resources or find collaborative development
efforts. For instance, if you already have an Internet
provider in town whose paying for a telecommunications line
out of the community, there are ways for a potential
investment by the Rural Telecommunity Center in a
videoconferencing telecommunications line to be shared with
the Internet provider -- saving everyone money and making
effective use of the resource. But its more than Internet. In
some cases your community may already have interactive
videoconferencing. Most importantly, its important to
complete the community assessment so that these local
investors in technology are only helped by a Rural
Telecommunity Center, not hindered.
3. If following the community assessment a local
individual wanted to build the Rural Telecommunity Center
would Rural Health Futures allow that to take
place?
Absolutely! Rural Health Futures developed the Rural
Telecommunity Center concept and a potential collaboration of
companies to build the Center to insure that these
technologies would be implemented in those rural communities
and regions that were committed to using the technology. If
following the community assessment, a local entrepreneur
reviews the business plan and believes it is a sound
investment, Rural Health Futures has accomplished its primary
goal. In fact, in all cases Rural Health Futures has
instructed all communities to seek out local interest once
the business plan was completed.
4. We are a community of 10,000 that is
interested in Rural Health Futures building a Rural
Telecommunity Center. We have several vacant buildings on
mainstreet that would be perfect for the Center. When could
you open a Center?
Once the community completed the assessment process that resulted in a quality of life study and a business plan for the Center, we would be interested in building a profitable enterprise in your community. Why do we require that the assessment process be completed before we are interested in building a Center? Two reasons. First, many rural communities have found out that the "build it and they will come" phenomenon doesn't apply. Instead, we believe it will only be successful in communities where nearly everyone in town is committed to change. Lastly, with any change there are both positive and negative results. Unless the entire community discusses the potential impacts of this change and establishes the quality of life study as a ongoing monitoring tool, many in your community will not be prepared for the change and therefore won't use the technology.
5. We don't have the funds to complete the community assessment. Do you have any suggestions?
We always knew that it would be difficult for any one agency in a community to fund the community assessment. But that's actually a good situation. For many communities the dollars needed to complete the assessment will require several groups in town to work together and decide whether this is an appropriate direction for the community. It becomes a community investment. Our investment is to charge a fee that is cost efficient and to commit to the community that these dollars will be directly rebated back to the entities that paid for the assessment if Rural Health Futures builds a Rural Telecommunity Center in your community.
Most importantly, each community must ask itself what
role they expect technology to play in it's overall economic
development plan. For many communities the reason they have
not pursued the Rural Telecommunity Center concept on their
own is two fold. First, no single entity in the community has
the money to invest. As shown in the figures our expectations
are that more than $1.5 million dollars will be invested in
the lead community and in one outlying or remote community
over a five year period. For the community that demonstrates
the leadership in the area, almost $1,000,000 of that
investment will be spent in their community. Secondly, there
isn't sufficient technology experience in the community or
area to direct such an investment. That's why we've worked
with other companies, primarily Kansas Communications, to
make sure the technology can be successfully deployed and
more importantly that a training program is available to
insure that the Center's staff is capable of supporting local
users of the technology.
Of course one of the concerns we've heard expressed in almost every instance, is how does the local economy benefit from this type of economic development. As the figure illustrates in part that depends on whether the community has lead the way for the other communities in the region. For the community that demonstrates the leadership and the commitment to pursue the technologies more than $700,000 will be spent in their local economy. Approximately $500,000 is an investment in local people through salaries and benefits.
But in reality this is only the tip of the iceberg. The
Center will clearly provide the community with an opportunity
to receive a direct return on their investment of
approximately $100 for each $1 spent on the community
assessment over this five year period. And our commitment to
your community is that each $1 you've spent will be directly
spent in the local economy or will be rebated back to you
during the first year and a half of the Center's operation.
But remember the real impact on the local economy will come
from how the community commits to using the technology. For
example, the assessment will help each local business
identify dollar savings that can be spent with the Center and
also redirected towards other investments or local retention.
And the overall purpose for pursuing advanced technologies
and telecommunications as an economic development strategy is
to encourage new people and businesses to move to a rural
region. Each bringing significant positive financial impact
on the local economy.
For additional information contact Kelli Schneider @
(970) 207-9798 or
