LAFOURCHE CROSSING, La. — For the last two decades, Jane Lyles has been stuck in the digital divide.
While other parts of the country have access to high-speed broadband, her family couldn't get cable at their home in rural Lafourche Parish, about 50 miles south of New Orleans. She's among an estimated 475,000 households across Louisiana that have never had high-speed, affordable, reliable internet.
For years, broadband internet access wasn't a major concern for Lyles. As a clinician, everything was handwritten. When her four children were toddlers, TV wasn't a go-to activity for the family. But over time, circumstances changed. Her physical therapy job shifted from paper to computers, her children needed to do schoolwork on the internet.
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"I realized that we were kind of in trouble. We were totally out of the loop," she said. "We would sit at a friend's house in the driveway for internet access, or we'd sit in a McDonald's parking lot and access the internet. It was just ridiculous."
Today, Lyles' children are now adults, and she welcomed her first grandchild in January, about the same time her Lafourche Parish home finally got connected to the internet following the state's aggressive push for broadband expansion in rural areas of the state.
Jane Lyles is a physical therapist who raised four kids with no internet in Lafourche Crossing, Louisiana. Her family is among an estimated 475,000 households across Louisiana that have never had high-speed, affordable, reliable internet. Her neighborhood was one of the first to benefit from federal money, which prioritizes broadband expansion in rural areas of the state. Photo courtesy of REV
Louisiana was the first state to receive federal dollars for broadband from the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It now leads all other states in its application for major broadband funding, according to the governor's office. In all, the state will receive nearly $2 billion for projects, including grants from the Federal Communications Commission, U.S. Treasury, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
Some 42 million Americans have no access to broadband, according to Broadband Now, a data technology company. In Louisiana, 1.7 million people, more than a third of the state's population, have this critical need.
Lyles now has some of the area's fastest, most reliable internet. This means no longer having to go from place to place, battle with hot spots, or pay for expensive alternatives that don't work as well.
"We had a block party when we got it. You just don't realize how bad things are sometimes. You just kind of plow through it," she said. "It was just so primitive. We are just really hard-working people, and we felt stuck. Now, the efficiency of work is night and day, especially for things like continuing education for my job and webinars and all kinds of stuff."
Gov. John Bel Edwards (left) attends the ceremonial ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the completion of the state's first program to expand broadband. The governor is joined by parish officials, the area's congressional delegation, as well as (from left to right) Shalanda Young, Office of Management and Budget director; Mitch Landrieu, the White House's infrastructure coordinator; and Josh Descant, REV's chief executive officer. REV partnered with the state to provide high-speed internet to nearly 100 residents in Lafourche Parish. Photo courtesy of REV
More than 100 households and small businesses in Lafourche Parish now have access — or the ability to upgrade — to high-speed, affordable internet. While it was a modest project compared to others happening across the country, it was a significant stride toward closing the state's digital divide by 2029.
The state has drawn from a number of sources to improve access. It used pandemic relief dollars from the American Rescue Plan to create the Granting Unserved Municipalities Broadband Opportunity (GUMBO) program, which offers grants to providers to subsidize the expansion of broadband to 80,000 homes, businesses, schools, and other locations.
The GUMBO program was touted as a huge success for coming under budget and being ahead of schedule. The program's efforts prompted an August visit to Lafourche Parish from Gov. John Bel Edwards and members of the Biden administration, including two Louisiana natives: Mitch Landrieu, the White House's infrastructure coordinator, and Shalanda Young, Office of Management and Budget director.
"Give people a little breathing room, the tools they need like broadband and internet to do what you do every day, And that's it. It's simple. Regular people deserve a shot in this country. And this project is an example of this," Young said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Aug. 28. "I'm excited to be coming home to South Louisiana to celebrate more Louisianans getting connected to broadband."
The state has also benefited from the federal Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, another creation of the bipartisan infrastructure law. In total, Louisiana is expected to receive $1.35 billion from the BEAD program, the eighth-largest allocation in the country.
President Joe Biden announces a multibillion-dollar program for high-speed internet infrastructure deployment, called the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD), at the White House in June. Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
The BEAD program prioritizes every unserved and underserved household and business across the country as part of the Biden administration's effort to provide access to affordable high-speed internet service to all Americans.
Landrieu, the former New Orleans mayor appointed by the Biden administration to coordinate infrastructure work between federal agencies and the states, said he's never seen this level of direct investment for Louisiana.
"Access to high-speed internet is no longer a luxury. Access to knowledge is a great equalizer in America. It is an essential tool to access education, health care, and jobs," he said. "People in the rural areas shouldn't have to decide between having to work someplace and living near the people that they love. High-speed internet creates an opportunity for people to build generational wealth, right where they live."
Landrieu, who as mayor led recovery efforts following Hurricane Katrina, said Louisiana has set the pace for other states to follow in expanding affordable high-speed internet service to unserved, rural communities.
Louisiana has made more progress in its BEAD application than any other state, Iyengar said. It completed seven of eight major milestones required by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to award construction contracts that will lay lines and deliver broadband service to the remaining 200,000 statewide locations.
Louisiana also leads the country with 56 percent of eligible households enrolled in the Affordable Connectivity Program. That's more than 523,000 households. The program provides up to $30 in subsidies each month to low-income households for internet access. Nationally, more than 21 million low-income households are enrolled in the program.
For internet service providers, the challenge is justifying the capital investment needed to establish broadband infrastructure in low-density areas with few subscribers. With federal subsidies available, Louisiana moved at a feverish pace to establish connectivity throughout the state.
Veneeth Iyengar talks to a crowd in Natchitoches, Louisiana, about the federal dollars that are available for broadband expansion in rural areas. Iyengar leads the state agency, ConnectLa, which was created to eliminate the digital divide. He has visited nearly 100 cities, towns, and villages in the state to provide support. Photo courtesy of ConnectLA
"We're hoping to knock this problem out once and for all, which is why we are working with a sense of urgency. The goal is to eliminate the divide that exists and effectively work ourselves out of a job," said Veneeth Iyengar, executive director for ConnectLA, the state agency coordinating broadband expansion in Louisiana.
Bad internet has been strangling communities across Louisiana with significant effects on police departments, businesses, schools, and health care. The influx of federal cash puts rural communities at the head of the line.
"It's a very complex problem that's going to impact generations," Iyengar said. "Broadband is really like an octopus with many legs. For example, if you're struggling with accessing health care because you live in a rural part of the state, by increasing broadband access, you're also increasing telehealth access, and by increasing telehealth access over time, you increase health care outcomes."
It's almost impossible for a business to operate without high-speed internet in today's digital age, said Gary Wagner, an Acadiana business economist and Dow chair in economics at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. Research from Wagner has shown how the lack of broadband infrastructure hampers economic development and other needs in rural communities.
Over a five-year period from 2014 to 2018, while the Lafayette metro area gained more than 15,000 jobs with faster fiber internet, estimated job totals in nearby rural parishes decreased as a result of changes in business download speeds, according to a study by Wagner. In a study released in September, Wagner reaffirms that businesses "experience an increase in employment when faster broadband speeds become available." That's particularly true for businesses with fewer than five employees and for start-ups.
"We were able to find pretty convincing evidence in the data that whether you had strong broadband to start or no broadband, an expansion in access is positively related to more job growth, positively related to more new businesses being formed, and positively related to how long those businesses survive," he said. "What we're seeing in the migration data is people are moving from the rural areas to the metro areas. One tool to help preserve some of these rural communities would be to expand broadband access there."
When Hurricane Ida made a direct hit on Lafourche Parish in 2021, bureaucratic red tape hindered officials who struggled to get help. Parish President Archie Chaisson said the push for high-speed broadband was less unwieldy and gives his parish a doorway to the rest of the world. He estimated about 25 percent of the parish still needs fast internet, which will help to attract and keep businesses and residents.
"It's an everyday discussion for us. We still have corridors with some raw land, which could be developed into commercial parks or some other business avenues. Now that we have that strong connectivity base there, it allows us to come up with some new ideas to develop that one particular part of the parish," Chaisson said. "This moved really quick. Sometimes, like for Ida, we have to work through many agencies before that money gets to us, and that becomes a cog in the wheel."
But with the efforts to expand broadband, he said it "was very simple."
"Once we identified the area, they released the money, and we rolled with it. Anytime you can cut out the red tape from the federal government, it's a good day," he added.
As the White House celebrates accomplishments, including broadband, residents in Lafourche Parish and other rural communities who often feel overlooked are glad to see progress. This means they don't have to move and can hold onto the ways and traditions they cherish without being disconnected from a fast-paced world.
In an age of remote work, telehealth, online classrooms, streaming content, and TikTok grandparenting, the need for speed and connectivity is no longer an option.
"Historically, [rural communities] have felt left out because most of the larger sums of money go to larger cities. This time it was different," said Michelle Eroche, a longtime Lafourche Parish resident who hasn't had access to internet or cable since building a home in 1996.
During the pandemic, when Eroche and her husband were isolated at home for five months, her husband had to run his law office using a cell phone and a hot spot.
Eroche said she briefly tried to convince her husband to move, but he didn't want to leave his hometown. Now, it's a distant thought. Her law office operates in the cloud, and the couple, now with high-speed internet available, has been binge watching TV. They even ran out of series to watch, she said.
"There are so many things that people take for granted, and when you don't have the ability to participate in that technology, it's debilitating. When we got internet, our lives changed completely." Eroche said.
Deep in the heart of Cajun country, there is a connectedness that is part of the cultural fabric, symbolized by the slow-flowing bayou running more than 100 miles from one end of Lafourche Parish to the other. Now, families like Eroche's are glad the internet now flows throughout the parish too — at a much faster pace.