Broadband Communities
States Make the Right Moves
California, Washington and Indiana recently enacted legislation to help facilitate community broadband networks:
Cooperatives and Rural Broadband
Underserved communities can provide broadband for themselves through nonprofit, cooperative entities. Many co-ops that were originally set up to provide phone service and distribute electricity now deliver broadband as well. Rural electric and telephone cooperatives are fiberizing rural America. Following are a few examples of the hundreds of successful cooperative projects.
Communities Join Forces For Broadband
Regional efforts to develop broadband infrastructure are becoming more common.
Building the Broadband Economy
In eastern Kentucky, the collapse of the coal industry, long a major employer, created severe economic hardship. Though a successor to coal hasn’t yet emerged, government agencies and economic development organizations at all levels are aware that the region needs to participate more fully in the digital economy. Efforts are underway to retrain miners and other displaced workers as computer programmers and homebased call center agents.