Broadband Deserts

Broadband deserts beget population deserts as many in rural areas seek greener, high-speed broadband pastures. Counties with poor broadband are seeing people move away to get better jobs or to get broadband for their kids. Real estate agents are reporting that it’s extremely difficult to sell a home that has no broadband option. Several studies have shown that students that grow up without home broadband don’t perform nearly as well as students with broadband. There are hundreds of rural counties working hard to get fiber broadband with the hope of stemming the population loss. Many are hoping to attract people who work from home as the best way to stem population loss and stimulate the local economy. They are banking on the notion that people will want to live in a beautiful and low-cost place while working from home, thanks to grant money being used from ReConnect, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), and the upcoming giant $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program grants that will bring broadband to a lot of rural counties. To some degree, promoting rural broadband is a demographic experiment on a large scale, but communities that make a commitment to foster the best benefits of better broadband increase their chances of surviving and thriving.