Rural communities behind suburban and urban areas in broadband

The FCC released a report a couple of days ago that shows rural areas are behind other areas in getting broadband services.

In a news release dated June 22, the FCC stated:

“While we have made significant progress, the report shows that approximately 28 percent of rural residents still lack access to the kind of broadband that most Americans take for granted,” said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “That is not acceptable, and it’s why the FCC has launched major initiatives to overhaul our universal service system, free more spectrum, and reduce barriers to broadband deployment. These efforts will help ensure that high-speed Internet can connect rural communities to global markets, jobs, and world-class education and health care.”

It is a very interesting report and you can read it if you wish.

It does not take a huge report by the federal government to tell us that rural areas are behind in high speed broadband access.  Rural areas are just that: rural – away from available services like municipal water and sewage.

Before the federal stimulus grants and loans, there was no incentive for any company to spend millions of dollars for a handful of subscribers.  It would take 40 or 50 years to recover the investment.

Now that the stimulus funds are flowing just about every wireless and landline company is scrambling as fast as they can to bring broadband service to those rural communities.  Additionally, broadband is finding its way into the poor and underserved served suburban and inner-city neighborhoods.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski may not be satisfied how fast the provisioning to remote areas is going, but it certainly looks like companies are pulling fiber as fast as they can all across the United States.

Here is just a sampling of what Broadband Expert has reported in this explosive expansion into rural areas.

Earthlink has pulled more fiber to rural areas in Eastern Tennessee.  The Hill Country Telephone Cooperative is pulling over 150 miles of fiber in the rural Texas Hill Country.

Clearwave Communication and Shawnee Telephone are pulling over 740 miles of 96-count fiber in Southern Illinois.  Windstream is laying fiber in rural Prentiss Mississippi.

Comcast is providing low-cost broadband in poor inner-city Chicago.  Underserved areas in eastern Pennsylvania have received enhanced high-speed broadband by AT&T.  AT&T has provided many rural areas in Alabama with broadband.  All of the above was accomplished with federal stimulus funds and loans in addition to 25% or more of the cost provided by the carriers to bring high speed to rural and underserved areas.

The list goes on and on; I could list pages and pages of areas being provided with broadband.

A husband and wife team, Dennis and Nancy Hunt provide their rural town of Appomattox, Virginia with high speed broadband access.  It is really remarkable that no federal funds provide the 100 or so customers with high-speed broadband access.  They used their own money to build all the infrastructure.

One of their customers is disabled and she uses 5 GB a day watching Netflix movies.  On top of that, they do not have data caps and charge only $35 a month.

Of course, if you choose to build a house far away from civilization like the one Steve Wozniak did, you should be responsible for your own broadband access.  He cannot even get DSL service.

Picture by George Hohmann of the Charleston Daily Mail in West Virginia.