Lack of Rural Broadband

September 28th, 2006

In this day and age where it seems everyone has a wireless laptop, a cell phone, and their own website or MySpace page, it’s important to take a step back and realize in many parts of the country, people still chuck along with a 56K or 28K modem: dial-up.

This is not for lack of customer demand. It seems like much of the population out there wants broad band access, as there’s a waiting list for service. But the problem seems to be that broadband requires investment from a major telecom company which doesn’t see it as cost effective to invest in the required infrastructure to support the fewer customers out there.

I’m not really knowledgeable enough to have any good solutions, but I wonder if at some point internet access becomes a national cause. Other countries like South Korea or Japan have huge broadband penetration. Meanwhile in the US we pay a lot for slower service, even in major metropolitan areas. I’d guess it just makes us more uncompetitive as a nation.

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