What the U.K.'s Growing Rural-Urban Net Divide Can Teach the US

As the U.S. broadband expansion plan stalls at the starting blocks, officials could learn a trick or two from the old country.

The UK's Net development plans demonstrate both shining examples and pitfalls to avoid. It all boils down to a mix of engineering and fiscal issues. Supplying a Net connection to an end-user isn't as simple as just throwing a switch in a phone exchange--a lot of infrastructure is required behind the scenes to shunt data through the cable network and onto and off huge server arrays. Investing in this infrastructure is costly, and the return on the investment is always going to be bigger in cities as there are more subscribers per exchange, and fewer long tracts of "empty" cable, as you find in the country. It's raw economies of scale, in a subscribers-per-square-kilometer sense. And as newer technologies like fiber are coming online, ISPs are obviously going to invest in urban areas first.