The Benton Foundation reports on the Broadband Connects America and their Principles to Connect Rural America. Here are the five principles:

1. Funding should be simple and allocated directly to infrastructure needs, not directly to last-mile carriers.
2. Closing the rural digital divide will require a combination of approaches that reflects the complexity of the challenges of deploying broadband to rural America.
3. Deployment should be focused on achieving tangible, affordable universal service to all rural Americans rather than allocated based on profit per population density.
4. Restoring net neutrality is essential to closing the rural digital divide.
5. Rural Americans’ access to high-speed internet should not be disadvantaged because of geography.