Verizon's battle with New Jersey town shows strong thirst for rural wireline broadband

Verizon's ongoing war of words with Hopewell Township’s (NJ) officials over telephone service quality and lack of fruitful broadband service shows that consumers' desire for high speed wireline broadband is just as prevalent in rural markets as it is in large cities.

The township's grievance with Verizon is part of an agreement New Jersey made with the telecommunications company over 20 years ago that's now apparently gone unfulfilled. Residents want the company to deliver on the “45 Mbps of symmetrical broadband service to every state resident by 2010 in exchange for tax breaks and other incentives” the company promised under the "Opportunity New Jersey" program. Despite the fact that local consumers paid nearly $13 billion in surcharges with the hope of getting high-speed Internet service, they have yet to see anything four years following the original deadline.