>> This is a small rural area, somewhere around 3,000 full-time residents. When I moved to the local area, the only Internet was satellite, and satellite just didn't work. >> We were using weird little repeaters from signals that were barely moving and Beth said, "I think I can get fiber optics and I think I can beam it to your silo." >> I purchased two antennas and radios I went along with that, people start saying you've got Internet, how do I get that? >> Here at the Hub we have a retail store. Internet is a huge boon to our existence. The locals who need a place to shop, who have no access to local food they can get local vegetables, locally made products that they wouldn't have access to otherwise. We communicate through a platform with a lot of the local farmers that's all internet-based. >> Our customers are ordering on an online market forum basically a grocery list. This is our grocery store, you get to pick as many of these things if you want, all internet-based. >> Currently I'm providing internet for 250 people. The problem with the current technology is that it needs to be line of sight. If somebody is back behind a bunch of trees or behind a mountain, it just doesn't work. In order to grow, we need some new technology called TV White Space. It uses the old TV frequencies and rebroadcasts them for Internet. The support from Microsoft has been extremely helpful, I never would've thought about expanding into TV white space without the support from Microsoft. From a policy level, we need more bandwidth so I can provide better service and push it out to more people. >> I think we're at ground-zero right now, with the Air Band initiative, we can take our farm to the next level. >> It's all about solving problems. It's a lot of fun to see people's eyes light up for the first time that they haven't had service before, it's nice to be able to do that.
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