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Rural Utilities Service administrator to visit Iowa

The administrator of the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service Jonathan Adelstein will be in north-central Iowa today (Tuesday).  He will visit an OmniTel Communications site in Rudd, Iowa where the company is in the process of deploying a 35-million dollar fiber-optic network. 

Adelstein’s visit is part of a campaign called The Great Disconnect, launched by a coalition of Iowa telecommunications companies.  It’s designed to increase awareness with government officials and the general public as to the negative impact that proposed new federal regulations could have on those independent telecommunication companies and the rural communities they serve.

Iowa Telecommunications Association spokesman Joe Hrdlicka says Adelstein will visit a farm, where he will see how investments in broadband technology benefit end users.

 “We’re going to bring a tractor in and show how a broadband connection is used to download data to a GPS system on the tractor,” Hrdlicka says. “We’re going to also show some other uses of broadband, particularly on the farm and in rural-directed businesses.” 

Hrdlicka says a proposal by the Federal Communications Commission—called the National Broadband Plan—could jeopardize Iowa’s access to equitable and fairly-priced communications services in the next few years.  He says that is the message they will convey to Adelstein.

“The financing that’s provided through his particular agency could be in jeopardy, based on our companies’ abilities to pay those loans back, if some of the plans the FCC is currently contemplating go into effect,” Hrdlicka says.

OmniTel Telecommunications, located in Nora Springs, Iowa, serves approximately 55-hundred customers with voice, Internet and cable television.  More than 145 Iowa independent telecommunications companies are part of the Independent Telecommunications Companies Coalition.

AUDIO: Joe Hrdlicka (5:49 MP3)

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