Dan Culley lives 2 miles south of Dayton in an area without cell service and very limited internet options. His struggle to get online mirrors many rural communities in the Walla Walla Valley.
The Walla Walla Community Council aims to bridge that gap by leading a project to expand broadband, or high-speed internet, access across Walla Walla and Columbia counties as well as the Milton-Freewater area.
“As soon as you cross the city limits, the available terrestrial infrastructure falls off,” said Phillip McKeen, a member of the Community Council’s study committee. “In other words, cable and fiber disappear very quickly. Cell signals also disappear very quickly as soon as you cross the hills, getting out of town.”
Two initiatives that had previously supported internet expansion were among those affected by the recent wave of federal cuts. To close the growing digital divide in rural Eastern Washington, the Community Council is advocating for solutions that will secure new funding while improving both affordability and accessibility.
The Community Council is a nonpartisan, nongovernmental organization committed to “open dialogue, solid research, consensus building and effective advocacy.” In 2021, the organization’s team began identifying a project broad enough to serve the entire community and meet a critical need. They narrowed it down to Internet for All — an initiative to create universal access to affordable and reliable broadband in the region.
McKeen said the Internet for All project aims to improve education and “help people learn about all things internet.”
Beginning in September 2022, its study committee spent 26 weeks researching barriers to internet access and solutions other communities had implemented to expand service.
Community Research Coordinator Laura Prado said that as part of the research, the committee spoke with organizations such as the Senior Center and Blue Mountain Action Council to understand possible barriers, with infrastructure stakeholders, including internet service providers and port districts to explore opportunities for building capacity, and with service providers offering digital literacy programs to assess support available for residents.
“And then from there, they (the study committee) put together their conclusions, and from the conclusions, they put together their recommendations,” Prado said.
The report was released in June 2023. According to the study, in Walla Walla, 20% of students lacked broadband access, compared with 40% in College Place and 100% in Prescott.
Prado said the project is now in its advocacy phase, in which committee members are developing an action plan for the recommendations. That involves “who are we going to talk to, what actions can we take, and how can we measure the results?”
She explained that some of the recommendations from the study committee are concrete, such as classifying broadband as a public utility, similar to water and electricity. Others were kept open to interpretation, such as addressing service gaps, so they can be applied broadly to different situations.
“They are working with service providers and saying, ‘Hey, you guys need to work together because you’re providing similar resources, and you can combine and basically be better for our community,’” she said. “It sometimes means talking to legislators or their aides and saying this is really important to our community, and we hope to have your support.”
Rural internet gap
McKeen works as a sole proprietor doing computer-related consulting in Walla Walla and Columbia counties. He recalled an incident in which he was contacted by a household on the Oregon side of Mill Creek Road that had no reliable terrestrial internet options.
“They are so far out … there’s no digital subscriber line, there’s certainly no cable or fiber,” he said. “There’s no wireless because it’s so wavy, windy up there.”
Their only choice was satellite internet, but because the property was surrounded by dense trees, they had to hire an arborist to climb a pine tree and place the dish more than 100 feet off the ground.
“And they’re operational now, but that was expensive,” he said.
In Dan Culley’s case as well, satellite internet was the only option. After he installed it with McKeen’s help, he was finally able to access Wi-Fi in his shop and call his son in Spokane over the connection. Almost everyone in his neighborhood struggles with internet access, Culley said.
McKeen said he believes a significant barrier to high-speed internet access in rural areas is commercial interest. If a community is 80% served, the incentive for the dominant internet service provider, or ISP, to cover the remaining 20% is relatively low because the return on investment is not ideal. Competitors typically do not step in either “because the area in between is thoroughly served by that major ISP”. As a result, small clusters of rural residents can remain without access even when nearby communities are connected.
“What I often run into is underserved individuals, people who can’t get internet or they can’t get it without some extreme response,” he said.
Expanding access
The Community Council’s goal for this project, Prado said, is to accomplish three tasks. The first is building out infrastructure for internet providers.
She said service providers often can’t afford to build in less populated areas with geographic challenges such as hills and dense trees that block signals, which require physically running cable or fiber lines.
“If they were to make that investment, they would never be able to afford to pay themselves back for it, and they would end up losing money,” Prado said.
McKeen said that many communities do not have the infrastructure for aerial overhead lines and burying cable is expensive.
The Council’s second goal is expanding affordability.
“How can we make the internet more affordable so people who would otherwise be cost-burdened and can’t afford their subscription can still have access to the internet?” she said.
The third goal the Council is focusing on is accessibility. A study published in the National Library of Medicine found that students in Washington’s rural districts have significantly less access to internet-enabled devices adequate for online learning compared with those in urban districts.
“If people have the infrastructure and they can afford it, do they know how to use it?” Prado said. “Do they have the technology to be able to connect to the internet? Do they know how to navigate the Internet? Do they know how to do so safely, so that they’re not so at risk for scams and phishing?”
Dennis Lovett of Dayton spends a Friday afternoon using the free internet access and computer at the Dayton Memorial Library. Many online services in regional libraries are provided by the Washington State Library, which relies heavily on federal funding.
Federal cuts
Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission ended its Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) because of a lack of congressional funding.
Through the ACP, eligible households received discounts of up to $30 per month for internet services and up to $75 for households on qualifying tribal lands.
According to a news release, as the program neared the end of its funding, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel sent monthly letters to Congress that highlighted the need for additional support and the program’s impact on participating households.
In June, the ACP exhausted its existing funds and discontinued all discounts.
“We don’t really have anything to replace it (ACP), not adequately, not at the state level, not at the federal level,” Prado said.
In September 2024, the Community Council formed a coalition with Goodwill Industries of the Columbia and several other entities to apply for a Digital Equity Grant offered through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The request was for about $3.5 million, of which the Council would have received $40,000 over two years if awarded.
In January 2025, Prado said, the coalition was notified by email that it was recommended for an award and a contract would follow.
“In terms of our understanding of it, we should have gotten an award for that,” Prado said.
It would have been the Council’s first federal grant and would have directly supported its Internet for All project.
In May, the Trump administration canceled the digital equity grants. In Washington, a $16 million grant was rescinded. President Donald Trump also called the Digital Equity Act, which created the $2.75 billion grant program “unconstitutional” and “racist.”
“It didn’t mean that we had to cancel any programs,” Prado said. “It meant that we have to work a little harder to find other sources of funding to help supplement what we do.”
To make up for the lost funds, the Council has been pursuing other grants and increasing sponsorship requests.
Rural communities around Walla Walla also have been working to expand access.
The Dayton Community Broadband Project and the Touchet Valley Broadband Project were completed in 2023 and 2024, respectively, after the Port of Columbia secured federal funds.
In a previous interview, Jennie Dickinson, the Port of Columbia County’s executive director, told the Union-Bulletin that adoption rates for the Dayton and Touchet Valley projects exceed 60%, meaning more than 60% of identified premises use internet service provided through the Port’s fiber-optic network.
Prado said, “We’ve faced some setbacks, but I really am just very optimistic about the future of this and the importance of expanding broadband internet access for health care, for education, for civic engagement, for socialization.”