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ing copper lines with fiber, with the goal of moving all customers to fiber optic connections eventually.
• None of these companies are offering the 1-Gps speed that Google will offer--but Kusser says that's basically because no one has asked for it yet. The fiber optic lines they have installed could handle that capacity if someone demanded it.
• Hauck said Dickey Rural Networks currently offer 100-megabyte-per-second speeds, and they could do 500 if it was requested. Anything more would probably require upgrading of electronics on their end, but that's also possible if there is demand for it, she said.
• Feeling a need for speed
• Demand is heading in that direction in the Dakotas and elsewhere, though it's not quite there yet. Consumers and businesses are finding many more ways to use the Internet (such as sharing large files, streaming video and video conference calls), and those uses demand more bandwidth and higher speeds. To serve those uses, the communications industry is moving toward fiber optic lines everywhere, since they can more reliably and quickly transmit large amounts of data.
• Dawn Redden, office manager of Hanson's Inc. in Faulkton, said having a fast Internet connection "is extremely useful for our business."
• E-mail, data searches, and the MaqQuest program that maps out routes for their drivers are some of the ways Hanson's uses the Internet, Redden said. "I also have an iPad that I use every day for work and personal use. I remember a time when I had a notebook at home, a notebook in my car, and a notebook at work, and it was rare that the information in each would transfer. Now it goes all to one place, and that's handy."
• Venture has made its fiber optic upgrades at Hanson's, and Redden says they rarely have to wait for the Internet now.
• Kirk Hoefert of Hoefert's Implement Inc. in Seneca is looking forward to getting that upgrade from Venture. He said the Internet "is absolutely essential for our business."
• "Without it we would be back to the days of pen and paper with lots of phone calls, which we haven't done around here for about 15 years," Hoefert said. "With the Internet we can log on and look at parts databases directly from our suppliers and get it ordered and shipped as fast as possible."
• Fast Internet connections also provide a way for many people to work from their homes, which can now just as easily be in Los Angeles, or in rural Clark, where Dave Adam lives.
• "(High-speed Internet) allows me to be able to work from home, which I am very

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