PRINEVILLE – In the early 1900s, the region’s main rail line bypassed Prineville, threatening to cut the small town off from the lifeblood of the railway, and the economic benefits of the transportation infrastructure, until the city voted to fund and build its own line.

Now in 2002, the region’s telecommunication infrastructure is threatening to bypass Prineville. And missing out on the information superhighway could be as bad or worse as missing the railroad, say Crook County community and business leaders.

”Telecommunications is today what transportation was yesterday to economic development,” said Crook County Judge Scott Cooper. ”Without adequate linkage we’ll become a podunk economy with dollars only circulating within.”

And for most in the county, that is unacceptable.

Several representatives from the county’s businesses, agencies, governments and telecommunication providers met this week to discuss Crook County’s technological needs and ideas for how to meet them.

”I think the problem is a little broader than everyone envisioned,” said Andrew Spreadborough, program coordinator with Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council and facilitator of the Central Oregon Telecommunications Task Force (COTel).

As of now, Madras, Redmond and Bend are hooked in with telecommunication services via a fiber optic line that runs from Portland, around Mount Hood and down into Central Oregon. Prineville is serviced with a splinter of that line that runs from Redmond to towns along Highway 126.

In theory, the fiber optic lines should provide Central Oregon telecommunication users with the opportunity for a fast, reliable and cost efficient way to send their data to Portland and beyond. But in Crook County the theory meets reality.

According to stakeholders at Tuesday’s forum, the county’s telecommunication struggles are unique to rural communities.

While businesses in the county do have access to high-speed T1 lines – broadband is not yet available, and bringing the county up to par with its more urban neighbors involves solving problems of reliability, affordability and capability.

First, Crook County businesses, agencies and even emergency services say they need a telecommunications system they can depend on.

”There is an expectation of service,” said Howard Becker, a lieutenant with the Prineville Police Department. Becker said his agency’s requirements range from a fully functioning, full-time emergency service dispatch system to the ability to train through teleconferences.

For Les Schwab, the issue of route diversity, or having more than one way of transmitting and receiving telecommunication signals, is paramount to its daily business workings. The tire company ships products to all its 346 stores from its Crook County facilities. And along with the products comes a lot of information.

”We are using both voice and data communications,” said Bruce Jarmie, the LAN/WAN/Telecom manager for the company. ”If we lose that, then we can’t ship product.”

The company lost telecommunication service about a year ago when the fiber optic line was cut near Portland.

”For six hours we could not communicate with our stores and they couldn’t communicate with us,” he said.

Another major issue in Crook County is expense. Private businesses and local governments say they cannot afford the high costs of telecommunications that they want.

For example, a representative from the Crook County School District said it has the equipment for video-conferencing, but can’t afford the connection needed to make it possible.

Several people compared the county’s ideal situation to the concept of a postage stamp, which costs the same amount to send information to anywhere from anyplace.

In the past, rates for telecommunication service were averaged among all the users. But with the federal deregulation of the telecommunication industry, averaging is no longer common practice among providers. This means that people far away from telecommunication hubs will likely pay more for service.

Another factor becomes the inability of customers in rural areas to get better rates through a provider’s competitors.

For example, the cost of connecting via a T1 line from Prineville to Portland or Bend to Portland may be comparable; however, users in Bend get the option of another company, and their rates if they don’t want to use Qwest, Spreadborough said.

”Basically, the issue is competition and how it affects pricing,” he said.

In addition, the costs remain high because the price of installing telecommunication systems – especially lines with more bandwidth – is high, and companies need a customer base before justifying investing the money.

Qwest’s fiber optic line makes T1 lines and lower available to the county. However, higher-speed communications, voice mail and call forwarding have yet to reach Prineville.

”In our case, businesses decided that they can live without the view of the rimrock if they can save a couple million dollars,” Judge Cooper joked.

In fact, Les Schwab pays more to operate from Crook County, than say in Redmond or Bend, Jarmie said. He said the company has tentatively discussed moving its IS department to Redmond for exactly that reason.

The affordability issue also leads to another quandary.

”How do rural communities get a big enough business base to support the telecom providers if business won’t come because the telecom isn’t there?” Judge Cooper said.

Senate Bill 622, which established a fund in 1999 that made financial support available to communities in need of better telecommunication infrastructure, may help at least with the redundancy problem.

Qwest Area Manager Gary Miller said the company expects to finish completing a mini fiber optic ring linking Crook County back to Redmond late this year. Prineville’s mini-ring will then connect the town to the larger fiber optic ring that will finish the loop from Bend to Eugene and back up to Portland. So a single errant backhoe can’t wipe out service.

Miller is optimistic that customers will see a drop in rates after Qwest installs a regional switch that promises to increase efficiency.

For Spreadborough, the solution may lie not in the private providers, but public-private partnerships and community participation.

”The community can’t rely on the private sector alone to meet all their needs,” he said.

Alternative solutions include companies like Quantum Communications, an affiliate of General Electric Cooperative. Quantum’s goal is to provide viable, high-speed broad band – without the high cost, said Mark Holden, the company’s general manager.

Working in conjunction with NoaNet, a nonprofit corporation that has licensed fiber optic cables from the Bonneville Power Administration, Holden said Quantum functions more like a public utility and in doing so is able to offer more competitive rates. He added, however, that building connections out to Prineville is still too expensive right now for Quantum.

And while no one proposes an easy answer, the need for an improved telecommunications infrastructure with the potential to bring business to Crook County remains clear.

”Do we want a vibrant rural economy?” Cooper asked. ”Or do we want a state that is completely empty except for around Portland?”

Kelly Kearsley can be reached at 541-504-2336 or kkearsley@bendbulletin.com.