Farm Bureau partners up to form Indiana Broadband Strategic Partnership

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Farm Bureau announced the formation of the Indiana Broadband Strategic Partnership that will help in the process of bringing reliable broadband to the communities that need it most.

To help make sure this happens, the IBSP initiative includes Cook Medical Group, Duke Energy Foundation, Indiana Association of Realtors, Radius Indiana and the Regional Opportunity Initiative, as well as others.

The new partnership will help promote the Indiana Speed Test, which is a crowd-sourced internet speed test created by GEO Partners LLC, which is based in Minnesota.

Katrina Hall, who is INFB’s senior director of policy strategy and advocacy, said the purpose of the new partnership is to help promote the expansion of broadband in rural Indiana and anywhere else in Indiana that needs it.

Hall said there are parts of the state where infrastructure isn’t set up and internet isn’t affordable, which is why INFB is partnering to form IBSP and work toward getting speed testing data.

Without speed test data from around the state, it’s hard to tell where broadband isn’t available or not fast enough, Hall said.

The speed test, which is available on the INFB website at www.infb.org/speedtest, as well as several other websites, shows the services that are available and allows citizens who don’t have broadband to select on a map the reason they don’t have broadband, whether it isn’t available or it isn’t affordable.

GEO Partners provides real-time internet speed data by collecting speed test information from residents. Displayed on geographic information system layers, the data pinpoints areas that are most in need of reliable, affordable access to broadband service.

Hall said this partnership is important because one of the things INFB does is work for the quality of life of its members.

“Adequate broadband in rural areas is important to companies who sort through data and give information to farmers,” Hall said.

The partnership isn’t designed to detract from the efforts already in place to help deliver broadband where it’s needed throughout the state, Hall said.