With Federal Help, Broadband Grows In Rural Areas

The BBC's Living Online section did a video feature recently on the California desert community of Darwin, where the residents still have to make do with dial-up in a country that's increasingly connected. As the BBC noted, "For some of the 35 residents in town, loading a regular web page at 28kb/s can take several minutes and is not always guaranteed to work out." Darwin is a bit extreme, but many rural U.S. communities are in a similar situation.

However, according to a new report, rural areas a gaining: In just one year, there has been a 10 percent gain in Internet speeds for subscribers to telcos within the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA). The growth is largely because of a federal push. According to NTCA Economist Rick Schadelbauer, "Thanks to federal investments in the Universal Service Fund (USF) and the stewardship of rural carriers, customers now have more options to leverage the Internet for education, commerce and health care, and adoption rates are increasing."

The improvements are due to increasing use of fiber. "Efforts by rural carriers to increase fiber availability in their communities are paying off with significantly faster broadband speeds that are comparable to those available in more populated parts of the country," said Schadelbauer.

As a result said the survey, "According to survey results, more than seven out of 10 customers of responding companies can subscribe to broadband service of up to 6 Mbps." Overall, last year among the same subscriber base, 61 percent had speeds above 3 Mbps, while this year the figure is 71 percent above 4 Mbps.

And, for those who fear the stultifying hand of government in the marketplace, the outcome is quite the opposite: more competition. "Nearly all (97%) of respondents indicated they face some type of competition from at least one other service provider in some portion of their service area, compared to 66% of respondents in NTCA's 2003 survey."

As for Darwin, the residents are hoping that they can tap into a fiber optic cable that will soon be run along a nearby highway. In the meantime, as the video shows, they have plenty of time to do other tasks while their web pages load.

Darwin, the town trapped by dial-up internet (BBC news, Mar. 2012)

NTCA 2011 Broadband/Internet Availability Survey Report (NTCA, Mar. 2012)

Broadband Deployment in Rural America Continues to Rise (NTCA news release, Mar. 29, 2012)