ISPs to rural America: Live with dial-up

ISPs TO RURAL AMERICA: LIVE WITH DIAL-UP
[SOURCE: ComputerWorld, AUTHOR: Robert Mitchell]
You can't get there from here. That old New England saw is an apt metaphor for the state of high-speed rural broadband. While many telecommunications carriers are posting record profits this year, millions of U.S. homes and businesses still have no access to broadband -- and that's no coincidence. The return on equity that Wall Street demands from players in today's largely unregulated telecommunications business all but requires carriers to abandon rural America. As population density drops outside of metropolitan areas, it's impossible for telecommunications companies or cable service providers to justify the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars per mile it can cost to bring fiber to every rural community, let alone every home. The result: Today, just 17% of rural U.S. households subscribe to broadband service, according to the Government Accountability Office. And a recent report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development says the U.S. dropped from fourth in the world in broadband penetration in 2001 to 15th place in 2006.
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