CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – Rural areas without broadband Internet access are being left behind as governments and companies across northern New England do more business online, economic development officials say.

“If we want to position the North Country to be economically competitive, we need to create at a minimum what’s called a backbone system,” said Nancy Berliner, executive director of the New Hampshire Rural Development Council. Such systems usually include ultra-high speed cabling and specialized computers called routers.

A committee led by the council is to unveil a telecommunications master plan next month, offering New Hampshire its first big-picture strategy for tackling rural broadband needs. In Vermont, a project is underway to design and build an $8.7 million fiber-optic network across six rural northern counties. In Maine, which already has a statewide fiber-optic network, U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud is working to establish an economic development commission that would include all three states and New York.

“We have a lot of companies that rely on the Internet to do defense contract bidding,” said Maureen Connoloy, an economic specialist with the Economic Development Council of Northern Vermont. “They need to be able to do it in real time. They can’t afford to have a satellite go out, or to miss a last-minute update because they’re on dial-up.”

Berliner and Connoloy said reliable statistics on the level and quality of broadband Internet access in their region are scarce. But there’s no doubt access needs to be improved, they said.

Broadband growth has largely been piecemeal in New Hampshire’s rural North Country. Businesses and individual entrepreneurs often have independently established isolated high-speed Internet links, occasionally with government loans or grants.

In a few cases, such links have been the projects of white-collar professionals in creative fields who want a home with rural charm, but also need to live and work in a wired world.

One example is a plan by John York, a software writer who works from his Dalton home. He has been talking with the Dirigo Paper mill in Gilman, Vt., to put an antenna on a smokestack to help give the surrounding area wireless Internet access. It would tap excess capacity from the mill’s high-speed connection.

But demand may be too large for the mill’s current connection, York said Tuesday, and talks have been centering around an upgrade.

“We may have to go bigger,” he said.

Berliner said rural parts of northern New England should work to attract more people like York, who can replace middle-class residents leaving the region as manufacturers move elsewhere. She said backbone systems are an essential starting place.

“It’s the small business sector, and it’s the creative area, that really needs to be supported,” she said. “Access to high-speed broadband is critical to making that happen.”

New Hampshire’s master plan is due in mid-February. A draft proposes linking the state’s future broadband network to Maine, Vermont and Canada from Colebrook. Additional links would run through Conway to Maine, and Orford to Vermont.

Berliner said access must be affordable to spark economic growth, which she said will require regional cooperation and solutions.

Vermont’s fiber-optic “ring,” named North-Link, will connect to New York, New Hampshire and Canada near Montreal, Connoloy said. She predicted construction would begin this summer and take three years.

“It has international impact,” Connoloy said. “It’s a huge project.”

She said staple Northern Vermont industries, including agriculture and timber-dependent businesses, are declining while technology-dependent businesses, like health care companies, are growing. She estimates that information services already are nearly 17 percent of northern Vermont’s economy, perhaps more.

“What that identified for us was a significant opportunity to grow the economy with jobs paying more than minimum wage if we could grow high-speed access,” she said.

She predicted early phases of the project would generate more than 500 new jobs and help the state keep another 2,000. Vermont’s network will be built with excess capacity.

“We’re not just talking a cable modem here,” Connoloy said. “We’re talking about real-time video teleconferencing, the ability to participate in international events.”

Maine is ahead of both states. It already boasts a statewide fiber-optic network, which reaches all libraries and schools, said Elaine Scott, Maine Department of Economic and Community Development marketing manager.

But Michaud, a Democrat, said more can be done. His proposed commission would control about $40 million annually in economic development funds. The money would be available for a range of projects, including technology initiatives.

“Many of the jobs we have lost in recent years have been in traditional, natural resource-based industries, and this commission could help us to revitalize those sectors,” he said Tuesday. “In addition, though, we will also need to invest in high-tech infrastructure to create the jobs of tomorrow.”

Co-sponsors of the bill include Reps. Charles Bass, R-N.H., and Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent.

“Regional economic development commissions have been successful in helping economically depressed regions to invest and create jobs,” Michaud said, “and that is exactly what we need to do in the northeast.”

AP-ES-01-18-05 1750EST