This story is a part of Ask Alabama, where you ask the questions, you vote to decide which questions we answer, and then we investigate. We noticed one concern that kept coming up in various forms.

One reader asked "Why is Alabama not pushing for rural internet access? Former Governor Bentley mentioned it and then nothing." Other readers questioned whether Alabama was falling behind the rest of the country in terms of rural internet access, while some questioned if it was a priority among legislators.

It all comes down to one repeating concern: Why doesn't Alabama have rural internet access?

So, while those questions did not win the weekly vote, we decided to pursue an answer as a bonus question. To submit your question or vote on our next topic, click here.

As one of Alabama's youngest senators and the state legislature's only full-time farmer, Sen. Clay Scofield's separate careers have helped him straddle the increasingly wide divide of modernity and traditionalism that exist in Alabama.

Sen. Scofield, 37, starts his day tending to his near 25,000 chickens before putting on a suit to talk to constituents, thrash out deals in Montgomery's halls of power, or, as he finds himself doing more and more in recent years, advocating for high speed internet that still eludes large parts of the state.

For Scofield, lack of quality broadband is one of the biggest threats to life in rural Alabama.

"It's something I see as being a growing concern and it's going to continue to put rural Alabama at greater disadvantages as we move into the 21st century even further," said Scofield during an interview with AL.com. "We're seeing that high speed internet is important in the 21st century just as electricity and water are. And so if we expect rural Alabama to be able to compete to be able to educate a 21st century work force, if we want rural Alabama to recruit 21st century jobs, if we want rural Alabama to recruit people to move there instead of moving away, then high speed internet has to be in the mix of utilities and amenities that is offered there."

Around 39 percent of the country's rural population is without access to fast broadband access, defined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as having a download speed of about 25 megabits per second. However, the closer you get to Alabama and Mississippi, the number of those without access increases substantially, according to FCC data. And that lack of access compounds the poorly functioning education and health systems that exist in some rural communities around the state, and ensures that rural businesses are excluded from the economy, according to state legislators and experts.

"Broadband has emerged as being as important to rural life as the phone service and power," said Dr. Darrell West, the founding director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Washington D.C.-based Brookings Institute, one of the country's leading think tanks. "And [the] digital divide is widening, where we see that lack of having access to high speed internet is leaving rural students and schools further behind."

As rural populations continue to migrate toward big cities, attracted by the lure of better work and opportunity, rural Alabama is losing its population, according to U.S. census data. Scofield says that means quality teachers are less inclined to take rural jobs, as are doctors, nurses and other professionals that are key to the success of a small, rural town.

At the same time, many federal and state services, such as social security and other benefits are increasingly moving online. And in many cases, those who need those services most are in broadband deserts. Take the Alabama counties of Greene, Perry, Sumter, Lamar and Wilcox, some of the poorest counties in the entire country, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Many residents in these counties have broadband access that ranges between zero and forty percent, according to the FCC's interactive data maps.

While Scofield's primary constituency of Marshall County has 90 percent broadband connectivity, he also represents large and rural parts of Blount, Madison and DeKalb counties, where there is little broadband access. At a recent event, one of Sen. Scofield's constituents commended him for putting forward a bill to the Alabama legislature that sought to tackle some of the issues faced by rural residents without high speed internet. "She explained that her contract with the Mars candy company wasn't going to be renewed because she didn't have a reliable internet connection," he said. "There are probably hundreds of stories all over the state of people that have been let go for the same reason."

He also predicts that many more are missing out on jobs and opportunities because businesses looking for a new home need high speed internet to compete in an increasingly globalized setting. "It's much harder to attract a business to a place that isn't connected to the marketplace," he said.

But by far the biggest reason why we haven't seen high-speed internet in rural Alabama is the prohibitive costs of installing the infrastructure. One mile of fiber optic cable costs between $30,000 and $100,000 to install, according to studies, meaning access for rural communities could cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

"For a long time the reason was that it wasn't cost-effective for the big internet companies to extend their services to rural areas," said Rep. Phil Williams, who was appointed to a rural broadband board around two years ago by then-Governor Robert Bentley. "I had met with AT&T executives in January this year and I left with an understanding that they had found a way to make this work commercially and would answer all the issues. Clearly they worked out a way to be profitable."

Among numerous talks, meetings, budget requests to conduct studies, "nothing happened" that pushed Alabama toward better rural access, said Williams. "It really seemed like he set it all up to get votes, in my opinion."

But going forward Williams is concerned about the prospect of the Alabama legislature taking tax dollars and providing a benefit to others. "I'm always going to be the guy that says, 'Should government be providing a service like broadband internet to private citizens?'," he said. "I think lawmakers can certainly help pave the way, but it can't be using the tax dollars that hard working people send to Montgomery to allow others to gain access."

Gov. Kay Ivey immediately shut down the rural broadband board when she took office in April this year. "Now I have no idea if the issue of rural broadband is a priority for the legislature going forward. We've lost a lot of momentum," Williams added.

While it's not yet known if the state's lawmakers see rural internet access as a priority in the coming session, or even in the years ahead, the closure of the legislature's working group will have surely set Alabama back. Rep. Williams described the working group as a vital bridge between the legislature and internet service providers. Now that has gone, it seems like market is being left alone to decide if the bringing high speed broadband to the boonies is cost effective. For now, it seems the answer is no.

However, there may be a silver lining coming out of Washington D.C. President Donald Trump pledged to include rural broadband as part of his $1 trillion infrastructure package. "But it will still be our job to attract the providers to the state and make it appealing for them to take on five families that live on a 10 mile stretch of road, but I think that can be done with specialized tax breaks and abatements," said Scofield, who wants to offer a tax break on 10 percent of the service providers investment.

"I don't want people living in rural Alabama to lose any more jobs over this," he added.

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