Millions in rural America lack reliable internet. How Massachusetts towns got online.

Otis, Massachusetts, isn’t the sort of place you expect to spend a lot of time online. For Kirsten Paulson, who lives part time in Otis, that’s all a selling point. Another major one: Her internet service is better here than at her home outside Washington (DC). That’s because the town of 1,500 people built its own network to fill in the gaps left by private providers, which don’t offer high-speed internet in Otis. Now, after decades of slow and unreliable service, nearly every house in town is connected to a state-of-the-art fiber-optic network. Versions of that story repeat themselves across western Massachusetts, where dozens of rural communities have used state, federal, and municipal funds to get their residents online. Some, like Otis, have built their own networks, treating internet access like a public utility. Others, like neighboring Sandisfield, have formed public-private partnerships to entice companies to provide service. The Massachusetts Broadband Institute, a state agency tasked with making affordable internet widely available, says that 99% of the commonwealth now has high-speed internet.