Crawling internet speeds in rural Kansas make trying to sell cattle online exasperating. Instead of uploading photos and videos of cattle for sale from home, farmer and cattleman Jay Young drives to his parents’ house or into the town of Tribune in far west Kansas where internet speeds are faster. Young has a broadband connection and says he’s able to create a cattle listing from home, but the slow internet brings on additional work. “I just can’t post the videos to that listing,” he said. “So, what I’ll do is I’ll email them or I’ll go into town and, and put the photos on there.” In Kansas, rural internet speeds and spotty mobile phone service generate barriers for business owners like Young, hamstringing their efforts to make a living
in an increasingly online world. Sometimes workarounds, like driving to a public Wi-Fi connection, offer an option for taking
care of business online. But that can take time and, in some cases, cost business owners money. Susan Ness and her husband recently went online in their hometown of Jetmore to enter water usage reports required by the state. “It took us two nights,”
she told the Statewide Broadband Expansion Planning Task Force, “to put in all the information.”
(Read more: Scott County Record)