Rural America. It’s the backbone of our nation. There is no other place where more blood, sweat and tears get poured into work. At BCom Solutions, we take pride in providing digital improvements for this part of America because it’s who we are.
Rural Americans are taking leaps and bounds in gaining access to broadband connection. A recent Pew Research survey shows 63% of rural Americans have a broadband internet connection at home. That number is up 28% from 2007. However, there are still improvements to make. Only 55% of rural residents and businesses have access to broadband speed of 25 MBPS or more, while in the city 94% availability is the norm.
BCom Solutions has partnered with local companies whose mission is to close the digital divide. Why do we partner with these companies? Because they are authentic. The best people to tell the story of connecting rural America are rural Americans. We believe we can help share their story best. One of BCom Solutions’ goals is to provide as many opportunities to rural America as we can.
Dakota Central
Located in North Dakota, Dakota Central provides reliable phone, internet, and tv to its customers. Their values of providing friendly, dependable, and responsive customer service fit in with the attitude of rural America. BCom Solutions worked with Dakota Central to revamp their website and make their services and tools more available. Upon completion of their website, Dakota Central has received nothing but positive reviews from customers. The site offered customers new ways to request services, access their speed test, view channel lineup, pay their bills and much more.
NTCA- The Rural Broadband Association
NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association approached BCom looking to build a website to host its digital advocacy campaign, called Build Broadband With Us. They wanted to create a digital hub where rural broadband providers and supporters could come together as digital advocates. Additionally, they wanted to create an attention-grabbing way to entice members to join their cause by sharing what broadband meant to them.
Our team’s goal combined spreading the campaign’s message and encouraging member participation in an overarching digital strategy. For the first facet of this project, we worked on finding a way to make an incentive for people to share their story. We accomplished this by offering free social media kits to those who participated. This meant creating unique content for a social kit, as well as building a website primed to house large amounts of information.
Then, using the NationBuilder platform, our development team built a website with simple forms on each page encouraging visitors to sign-up and share their story. The NationBuilder platform helped us collect names and email addresses to ensure the NTCA team would have access to all of the data and tools necessary to achieve their goals. In turn, our design team crafted branded images from users’ stories and incorporated them back into our strategy for social.
Nebraska Technology & Telecommunications
Nebraska Technology & Telecommunications (NT&T) is committed to bringing back friendly, personable phone service. They have a wide client base that covers Nebraska, Colorado, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. NT&T has a main focus on accessibility. When revamping their website, we took this into consideration. The website made it easy for customers to get a quote, pay their bill, and ask questions. During the design process we focused on user experience so whether you need residential or business services, the new website is more user-friendly and reliable than ever before.
Connect Rural America
Having reliable broadband speed is key to success, and a person’s zip code should not define their success. The United States is more than just a nation. It’s a community. And communities function the best when they are connected.