The National Broadband Maps were unveiled about three weeks ago. The dust has settled, the traffic to the site has become more manageable for the servers, which means the interactive maps are actually interactive now. And the mainstream press is starting to comment on the maps. The Wall Street Journal pulled out some salient statistics:

• Between 5 % and 10% of U.S. households, most of them in rural areas, don’t have access to Internet service of at least 4 megabits per second—considered by the government to be a minimum for basic activities such as web-surfing, e-mailing and video-streaming.
• About 85% can get Internet speeds of 10 megabits per second to 25 megabits per second, the map shows, while 50% have speeds available of 25 to 50 megabits.
• The Census survey, released Thursday by the Commerce Department, also shows about 32% of households don’t subscribe to broadband service even though it is available.
• As of October last year, 3% still rely on a dial-up connection, which provides speeds of less than 1 megabit per second, the agency estimates.

As the WSJ says – there are significant gaps. There are two digital divides – access and adoption. Access seems to be a predominantly rural issue. As many who commented on the WSJ article point out – the reason access is still an issue is that there isn’t much of a business case for providers to enter rural areas. Low population density alone makes an area less attractive from a business perspective. In Minnesota we’ve seen a few solutions to that access issue, we’ve seen municipalities step up, we’ve seen counties partner with providers, we’ve seen stimulus funding help.

Adoption is not only a rural issue – but it is an issue. As the stats above indicate 32 percent of households don’t subscribe to broadband even when it’s available. Last Fall, Jack Geller did a survey on broadband access and adoption in Minnesota for the Blandin Foundation. He found that 36 percent of households didn’t have broadband access. Now some of those folks didn’t have access but that wasn’t the top reason. He found that:

• 61 percent of households without broadband thought it was too expensive
• 20 percent reported broadband was not available
• 15 percent had little use for broadband
• 4 percent used broadband somewhere else

Those responses would indicate that education and broadband promotion might help increase adoption. Programs such as the Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities (MIRC) set out to reach folks through education. MIRC involves 19 partners – some represent demonstration communities that are supporting local education and promotion efforts, some are organization that provide training or other support. Some training means showing people how to use computers, some training means giving people skills to use computers in the workplace (perhaps for a new job) or using computers to build up a business. One goal is broadband adoption – but MIRC also strives to increase quality life for individuals and communities.

Once everyone wants broadband it might be easier to make a business case for businesses to enter rural markets. (It still might require subsidies – but a greater take rate always helps.)