The Daily Yonder has just started an article series on rural broadband. This week they are taking a look at the National Broadband Map and what it means in terms of comparing rural and metro broadband availability rates…

We can also look at general levels of broadband availability across the three types of counties:  metro (which typically have a city of 50,000 or more), micro (which typically have a city of 10,000 or more), and non-core (no cities of 10,000 or more). The figure to the right demonstrates that the more rural areas are significantly worse off in terms of the availability of wired broadband infrastructure.  In fact, nearly 30% of all noncore counties have more than 40% of their population lacking access to wired broadband infrastructure.  Alternatively, we can look at where broadband availability is best — where less than 2% of the county population lacks access.  Only 5% of non-core counties meet this highest category of availability, compared to nearly 40% of metro counties.

Here are  Percentages of Population with no Wired Broadband Access Availability in Minnesota (2010)

• Metro – 4 percent
• Micro – 12.5 percent
• Noncore – 26.6 percent
• Metro – Micro Gap – 8.5 percent
• Metro – Noncore Gap – 22.6 percent

So how do we rank?

• Minnesota is 34^th in terms of Metro access
• Minnesota is 27^th in terms of Micro access (3 states don’t have counties with micro characteristics)
• Minnesota is 27^th in terms of Noncore access (5 states don’t have counties with micro characteristics)
• Minnesota is 24^th in terms of Metro – Micro Gap
• Minnesota is 28^th in terms of Metro – Noncore Gap