Ga. lawmakers look to connect rural areas to internet

Georgians send emails and social media notes to state lawmakers about all kinds of problems. One issue that has come to lawmakers’ attention is how hard it is for some constituents to connect to the internet.

“So many people have said they want to come ... let this group know what their specific problems are,” Monticello Republican state Rep. Susan Holmes said Wednesday at the first meeting of a Georgia House-Senate study committee on broadband access.

The panel convened at the state Capitol.

In the most remote parts of Georgia, some houses and businesses lack good wired internet because companies have, for instance, found it too expensive to run high-speed lines to customers on sparsely populated country roads.

People in, say, Macon live so close together that a company can reach a lot of customers in a small space.

Even so, parts of Macon, Bibb County and surrounding areas lack some of the fastest services, according to data collected from several federal sources by the state of Georgia.

And where there’s no robust internet connection, it can be hard for businesses to grow.

What lawmakers don’t know yet is what to do about it.

They’ll spend the next months looking at the possible roles for companies that provide phone, wireless or broadband service. They’ll look at what other states do, and what some communities in Georgia have done to set up their own broadband services.

It’s important that the issue is addressed, and not only for economic development, said Republican state Rep. Don Parsons, co-chairman of the committee.

He worries about students who can’t look things up online as easily as students can in his densely populated Marietta district.

“That’s information and resources that those (rural) children don’t have,” Parsons said.

The committee will meet in Macon on a date yet to be decided.

The committee may write recommendations for the whole Legislature to consider.

“I just feel like if the state is not involved in some way, good coverage is never going to happen. I don’t mean regulate. I don’t mean pay. But I say we’ve got to make it easier for providers to provide this service,” Holmes said.

“If we don’t do it, it just won’t happen. And if it doesn’t happen, shame on us as legislators.”

This story was originally published August 31, 2016 at 3:01 PM with the headline "Ga. lawmakers look to connect rural areas to internet."