Rurls Flouder for Tech

The Wall Street Journal has a report about the state of broadband to the sticks and its progress in an economy aching under the pressure of 8W years.

Ms. Tumbridge pays $60 a month for a sattalite service so she can have a better ISP than the dial-up her neighbors are forced to use. She makes an interesting comment that its difficult to be a small business owner in today's tech world without having high speed access.

The piece continues

"Even cities that already have successful networks up and running plan to apply for stimulus funding to expand into rural areas. Wes Rosenbalm, who runs a fiber-optic broadband network in Bristol, Va., says reaching spread-out and sparsely populated regions of southwestern Virginia will cost much more than the initial $26 million he raised. "We are committed to getting to every area we can get to," Mr. Rosenbalm said in a recent interview.

Telecom and cable providers say they’ll eventually reach the rural areas where 10 million Americans are stranded with dial-up access. But for communities wanting to ring in the 21st century sooner rather than later, municipal projects might be their best hope."

As someone who lives in a rural state higher access to broadband builds jobs not just in developing the infrastructure but in skilled workforce like technicians. It also helps young people feel connected enough to want to stay in rural areas, telecommute, save family farms that continue to falter, and build small businesses to save our small towns.

Are the Telco's dragging their feet because of the cost/benefit analysis is too small, or are they dragging their feet because they're waiting for the government to come in and build it and then hand it over?