The Rural Telecommunications Congress (RTC) is a national membership organization dedicated to assuring that rural areas in the United States have access to the information and support they need to obtain and use advanced telecommunications services and technology for social and economic development.
The world of telecommunications is constantly changed by new inventions and new applications that carry us deeper into the 21st Century's Information Age. Public policy often lags far behind the impacts this new technology has on individuals and our society. Rural communities often lag far behind cities in deploying new technologies that are so critical to community and economic development to ensure we do not create "digital dustbowls" of the future.
The Rural Telecommunications Congress is based on an old-fashioned idea. The RTC is designed to serve as Rural America's "party line" of today's Information Age in the same way the telephone party line was used the 20th Century to share news and information within a community. It is a new way to link telecommunication-oriented communities of interest with industry and with rural community leaders and innovators.
It is an opportunity to develop vital networks within a virtual environment to learn from each other about projects that work and don't work. It's an opportunity to celebrate and share successes and to identify our barriers to success and create a nationally recognized common voice to overcome them.
RTC History from 1997 - 2009
In 1997 a group of concerned citizens, local and state government officials, consultants, and others began to meet in Aspen Colorado each fall to discuss how the western states could benefit from the utilization of high speed broadband services. Their concerns were focused on both the current and future deployment of broadband services by various types of service providers, and the lack of knowledge at the “grass roots” level of what types of “applications” were needed to be embraced at the community and corporate levels of education, health, government, and the private sector in rural America. The meetings were initially supported by Federal government grants and TA services provided by Federal agencies in marketing the conference throughout the western states. A local community college stepped up and became the host site for the annual meetings. Annually the conferences attracted 150 -200 people.
By 2001 the core group of people that had been attending the meetings in Aspen since 1997 decided they needed to develop a more formal organizational structure and expand the organization on a more national scale. During 2001 the marketing efforts for the fall conference reached out to states east of the Rockies and a number of eastern people attended the conference for the first time. This annual meeting evolved into a formal organizational development conference and by the end of the conference the Rural Telecommunications Congress had been formed, officers were elected, by-laws written, state congresses began to be formed, and the Rural Telecommunications Congress decided to move its next meeting to somewhere east of the Rockies. Initially, Washington, DC, was selected for 2002, but later Des Moines, Iowa became the host city based on other concerns going on in Washington post the 9/11 event. The concept of “state congresses” really never took hold, but the annual meeting has served that vital function for all the past 8 years.
The RTC immediately became “the national rural telecommunications conference” to attend as it was focused on only rural issues of broadband, and each year the conference theme changes to address current and future issues, trends and directions being taken in the industry, national issues, and each year it focuses on a specific new theme that is the basis for the overall conference.
The 2002 conference in Des Moines was attended by well over 350 people. Each state in the USA was represented by at least 1 person and 8 people came from counties around the world. The first conference featured a Federal Resource Center, nationally recognized Federal and state speakers, industry speakers, other governmental speakers, and others. The conference included a large vendor convention hall, and numerous concurrent breakout sessions. This conference format has been followed ever since.
In 2003 the RTC held its 2nd annual conference in Washington and again the conference attracted nearly 400 people from all over the country and the world. The RTC has met annually since then in: 2004 in Spokane, Washington, 2005 Lexington, KY, 2006 in Little Rock, Arkansas, 2007 Springfield, Illinois, and in 2008 in Smugglers Notch, Vermont.
Annually the RTC attracts nearly 350 - 400 people who come from nearly 30-40 states annually and from other foreign counties to talk about what they have done in their states / communities to bring about the deployment and utilization of broadband services in rural areas. Topics that have been discussed but are not limited to have focused on: how communities are sustaining nascent networks; how different sectors of local communities and states are collaborating to ensure sustainability of nascent networks; how communities and states and regional areas have planned and implemented broadband strategies in their communities to ensure continued human resource and economic development growth; and a variety of “applications” have been highlighted on distance learning, telemedicine, e-government, and e-business and other topics in each conference that has been held. Normally 40 -60 different speakers present papers / talks each year at this conference.