Matt Rezac at the Blandin Foundation turned me on to the Daily Yonder. It’s a blog that publishes articles that, “Keep It Rural”. The stories are engaging and thoughtful. I ran into a prime example today..

This week they’ve done an article on the need to promote broadband demand and enforce broadband supply (Rural IT: Let’s Look Beyond Friday Night Lights). It starts with two scenarios that may sound familiar to many readers. One small city mayor watches as her street is ripped up to deploy fiber; unfortunately the provider is bypassing her community to serve a larger town nearby. So her community will not be getting broadband soon. In the second scenario, a town celebrates their new state-of-the-art high school football stadium while the teachers worry that their IT system will leave students unprepared for the workplace.

It’s a short article and worth reading – more than that I think it’s the kind of article you could send you your elected official or incumbent provider who maybe needs a nudge to get it.

The author, Timothy Collins, gets at the need for some level of public-private partnerships by pointing out that vendors have a corporate responsibility to serve all customers and policy makers can play a role by subsidizing coverage where the market lacks a compelling business case and they can build demand by promoting training and technical assistance.