LinkMichigan's Wrong-Way Trip Down the Misinformation Highway

LinkMichigan supporters claim there is no broadband access in downtown Lansing.  In truth, there are multiple providers of DSL services, cable modem service is available, and customers can sign up for satellite-based broadband service at the nearest Circuit City store.

LinkMichigan supporters claim "Michigan has 4 percent of the nation's population but only 1.3 percent of the high-speed broadband phone lines (ADSL)."  This "statistic" is grossly misleading because it is incomplete. Note that the statistic includes only DSL, but fails to consider all the other forms of broadband and high-speed access widely available in Michigan including cable modems, T1 lines, satellite-access, etc.  This claim is also directly at odds with a statistic provided by the Federal Communications Commission that shows Michigan ranks 10^th in the number of high-speed lines.

LinkMichigan supporters claim Michigan is "dead last in investment per phone line."  Even if this claim were true, it is meaningless when discussing the issue of broadband deployment. States that have to invest more often have lower-grade telecommunications infrastructures to begin with, so they must spend more to get up to speed. And states with lower population densities will almost always have higher per line investments.  For example, Nebraska has high per line investments because it averages 22 people per square mile according to the most recent census figures.  Michigan, which has 176 people per square mile, starts out at a disadvantage when trying to make state-to-state comparisons.  On a per line basis, it requires less money to build networks in Michigan than it does in states with lower population densities.

LinkMichigan supporters claim our schools and hospitals lack access to high-speed Internet services.  Again, this is simply not true.  Michigan's schools and hospitals are using high-speed networks for distance learning and telemedicine.  For example, a recent report by the Michigan Department of Education lists a number of recommendations for improving technology use in schools—none of them involved a lack of access to high-speed Internet services.  If anything is holding institutional users back, it's a lack of equipment within their facilities and required training on how to use it.