Southern Ind. lags behind state, nation in high speed internet access

Southern Indiana has been slower at adopting higher Internet speeds than the rest of the state and nation.

High-speed Internet connections, while convenient for downloading videos and playing games online, are also major indicators of economic development. Southern Indiana, however, is lagging behind, according to a new report from the Indiana Business Research Center,.

The Brookings Institution has said for every one percent increase in high-speed Internet adoption, non-farm private employment will rise approximately .3 percent. The report also stated high-speed access is a key component of a knowledge-based economy.

President Barack Obama outlined his goal to make the United States a competitive knowledge-based economy in his 2011 State of the Union Address.

To do this, high-speed Internet access will have to be adopted on a broad scale. The federal government has created a national broadband plan that gives examples of how high-speed Internet could improve areas like health care, public safety, civic engagement and economic opportunity. The plan’s goal is to provide 100 million Americans with high-speed Internet access by 2020.

While Monroe County has relatively high connectivity — between 60 and 80 percent of households in Monroe County have a high-speed broadband connection, according to 2009 data — the rest of the southern portion of the state has less than 40 percent of households with high-speed Internet.

Most larger cities in Indiana have a high rate of connectivity, but none of the counties in Indiana rate near the top nationwide. None of the 120 counties across the nation in which more than 80 percent of households have high internet speeds are in Indiana, for example.

“While in past decades, access to interstates and railroads played a crucial role in economic development, the knowledge-based economy is experiencing a similar reliance on broadband connectivity,” the IBRC report stated.

— Zach Ammerman