The Benton Foundation reports on the Broadband Connects America and their Principles to Connect Rural America. Here are the five principles:
- Funding should be simple and allocated directly to infrastructure needs, not directly to last-mile carriers.
- Closing the rural digital divide will require a combination of approaches that reflects the complexity of the challenges of deploying broadband to rural America.
- Deployment should be focused on achieving tangible, affordable universal service to all rural Americans rather than allocated based on profit per population density.
- Restoring net neutrality is essential to closing the rural digital divide.
- Rural Americans’ access to high-speed internet should not be disadvantaged because of geography.