Guess how many people in rural America have access to a high-speed Internet connection? Only 38 percent. That doesn’t seem right to me – but that’s what Center for Rural Affairs is reporting in a recent article (Rural Broadband Access Key Component in Community Success). The article goes on to say that rural areas are at a widening disadvantage while they are underserved.
My favorite part of the article is the comment (only 1 when I looked). The comment points out that anyone can get access to satellite. (At what cost? But I’ll leave that out for now.) He talks about how his grandparents were the first in their area to get a phone, which meant everyone had to suffer phone poles in their yards to accommodate the new phones. An interesting question would be how people would react to such an inconvenience today for the sake of broadband.
The other thing that struck me was that 38 percent. So I looked a little further and found an even more depressing article that claimed that “According to the federal government, just 17% of rural U.S. households subscribe to broadband service.” I guess that if 38 percent have access and 17 percent get it – that’s a 50 percent take rate. But still, it doesn’t seem great.
I wondered how that stacked up to other rural areas around the world. So here’s my completely unscientific and pretty random list of how other areas are doing:
Deutsche Telekom AG says they will be offering DSL to 96 percent of all households by the end of 2008. But at the end of 2006, only half of those in the country could access DSL. (I know you can debate whether DSL is broadband, but again this is pretty unscientific.)
Recent EU research found only 60% of businesses and households in remote and rural areas of the EU have broadband. (The EU just appointed consultants to improve that situation with a €3.5 million project.
India is going great guns with WiMAX. “With respect to rural connectivity, the government’s objective is to reach about 80 million rural connections, or one phone per two rural households, by 2010.”
South Africa vows to get online before 2010 World Cup. No stats, but I just loved the motivator.
[...] Rural Broadband Access Dismal [...]
By: Rated Bear Grylls shows | Long Range Wireless Technology on September 10, 2008
at 7:04 am
[...] Rural Broadband Access Dismal [...]
By: Virtual Private Network VPN enables secure access | Long Range Wireless Technology on September 10, 2008
at 7:07 am
[...] Rural Broadband Access Dismal Tags: broadband [...]
By: IEEE Standard 802 16 2 was | Long Range Wireless Technology on September 10, 2008
at 7:07 am
[...] Rural Broadband Access Dismal [...]
By: About the IEEEThe IEEE has more | Long Range Wireless Technology on September 10, 2008
at 7:09 am
[...] Rural Broadband Access Dismal [...]
By: This system would make use of variety of | Long Range Wireless Technology on September 10, 2008
at 7:10 am
I just noticed that the Morris Sun Tribune ran an article on the Center for Rural Affairs article today: http://tinyurl.com/5s3syw
By: Ann Treacy on September 10, 2008
at 6:29 pm
Amazingly this statistic doesn’t surprise me. I’m a software developer and frequently work form home(or I used to). Just this year I bought a house outside of Duluth, MN. We were assured by both broadband companies (unfortunately there are only two broadband options up here, Qwest dsl and Charter Communications cable) that the house we had been looking at could in fact get broadband. We happily moved into the house, started setting up services, and surprise surprise no service. Frustrated we called them and both assured us that they would have service out there in a few months. Almost a year later we still have no service. So, now I am forced to use satellite internet which I hardly call broadband. I’m able to obtain speeds just a shade better than dialup and I’m unable to vpn into my work(which is required for me to work from home). We’ve been forced to put off starting a family or even having a pet because our jobs require that we have a connection and we’re unable to get one from our house. The big two(Qwest and Charter) seem hesitant to supply the rural areas because they probably feel they will not get substantial returns. Talking with people in my area however, almost everyone wants it. To make matters more annoying, the Qwest broadband line actually stops just two miles down the road. If they were to go just two miles more with it, they’d be able to service potentially 30 households. Just irritating I guess. Thought maybe you of all people wouldn’t mind hearing a rural Minnesotan rant.
By: John Fredrickson on September 12, 2008
at 1:00 pm
I’m so sorry! It must be so frustrating. And I don’t mind hearing a rant at all. Even those of us who work in this area need to hear from someone who is hindered by not having broadband – or we forget that it’s more than bits and bytes. It’s the difference between being able to work from home or choosing where you want to live or how you live.
I just spoke with someone in Grand Marais yesterday. We’re on a planning committee. We’d like to meet remotely – but he has satellite and the inherent latency makes it difficult to use most conferencing tools. I assume the latency it what’s keeping you from working very effectively too.
I wish I had some advice – but perhaps just getting the message out there will help. As you say, the demand is there to make the investment in broadband worth it in your area. If the providers could keep from fighting for low hanging fruit in the Twin Cities and spend the marketing money in infrastructure your area (and many other rural areas) they too would reap the benefits!
By: Ann Treacy on September 12, 2008
at 1:54 pm
John, I feel for you. I’ve been told that I’m less than a mile from where the broadband stops and for 2 years I have been told that it’s coming. I succumbed to the Windstream (OH) sales pitch a few weeks ago after I was told that the local infrastructure had been updated. I should have known better. I made an appointment for installation (scheduled for today), called last week to confirm that the service was, indeed, available at my home. Oh, yes, I was assured that it was. Today, no show. I called to see what happened to the tech, was asked, “Didn’t someone call you yesterday?” Nope. “They should have. Broadband isn’t available at your home.”
I’m less than 5 miles from a University and less than 20 miles from a city with a met pop of well over a million. It’s just bizarre. Not sure who your satellite provider is, but I use Ground Control. The service has never gone out, even in a blizzard, but with the cap and the speed it’s unusable for anything but the basic services. And it’s horrendously expensive.
By: J. Henley on September 25, 2008
at 10:02 pm
[...] available but there are still millions of people in the United States (and around the world) that can’t get broadband for these digital distribution scenarios. Even those urban broadband choices in the USA are all [...]
By: Broadband Distribution: Where is All this Bandwidth Going to Come From? on December 11, 2008
at 7:34 am