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About a Quarter of Rural Americans Say Access To High-Speed Internet Is a Major Problem (pewresearch.org)
According to a Pew Research Center survey, 24% of rural adults say access to high-speed internet is a major problem in their local community. "An additional 34% of rural residents see this as a minor problem, meaning that roughly six-in-ten rural Americans (58%) believe access to high speed internet is a problem in their area," the report says. From the report: By contrast, smaller shares of Americans who live in urban areas (13%) or the suburbs (9%) view access to high-speed internet service as a major problem in their area. And a majority of both urban and suburban residents report that this is not an issue in their local community, according to the survey, conducted Feb. 26-March 11. Concerns about access to high-speed internet are shared by rural residents from various economic backgrounds. For example, 20% of rural adults whose household income is less than $30,000 a year say access to high speed internet is a major problem, but so do 23% of rural residents living in households earning $75,000 or more annually. These sentiments are also similar between rural adults who have a bachelor's or advanced degree and those with lower levels of educational attainment. There are, however, some differences by age and by race and ethnicity. Rural adults ages 50 to 64 are more likely than those in other groups to see access to high-speed internet as a problem where they live. Nonwhites who live in a rural area are more likely than their white counterparts to say this is a major problem (31% vs. 21%).
You really can't fault the cable/DSL service providers for not investing tons of money expanding their wired networks out to the sticks if the number of additional subscribers they will get will not pay for said network expansion.
We've paid them to do it. They promised to deliver high-speed internet to all wired subscribers and didn't. The people (like me) on satellite would still be screwed, unless we could establish a private wi-fi link to a neighbor who's got service, but the vast majority of people would at least have something useful.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If rural folks have access to high speed Internet, I don't see how that's a problem.
I have in laws living on Iowa farms only a three or four miles from a town that has very good high speed Internet but their only wired connection is dial up. Lack of HS Internet is a real problem considering all the high tech graphical agricultural information available to them from a wide variety of sources.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Sure the internet is shit compared to the big cities, but they probably don't have to spend several hours stuck in traffic every day. If there were a perfect place where you could truly have it all, everyone would try to move their and that would probably ruin it. So ask yourself what's really important to you and realize that you might have to give up some other things in pursuit of that.
I just checked with Xfininty and they offer 1Gbps internet at that address, greenwow. Why do you pretend it isn't you posting this every time? We all know you are the "slow Internet in Seattle guy".
"You really can't fault the cable/DSL service providers for not investing tons of money expanding their wired networks out to the sticks if the number of additional subscribers they will get will not pay for said network expansion." - Uh yeah, actually we can. It was part of the deal they signed with the government in exchange for exclusive territories. The TelCo's haven't held up their end of the bargain.
"But most rural folks also hate the government so that might not go over well." - Is it any wonder? See above. As with a lot of these kinds of issues, if you dig deep enough you will find that the folks charged with looking out for us (i.e.government) is often to blame. The TelCo's, being the greedy opportunists that they are, are simply taking advantage of the situation. They are banking on little to no enforcement and if push comes to shove, it's nothing that a few campaign contributions won't fix.
But most rural folks also hate the government so that might not go over well.
Baseless assertion much?
To begin with, while there are certainly rural residents who hate the government, there are also suburban and urban residents who also hate the government. In fact, I will make my own baseless assertion here and say that the percentage of rural "government haters" is not meaningfully different from the percentages of suburban and urban "government haters." Boy, that was fun and easy.
Furthermore, there is a world difference between wanting smaller, less intrusive government and hating the government. You can find plenty of people who are one but not the other, the same as you can find those who are both and those who are neither.
Further-furthermore, you must not be familiar with things like farm subsidies, ethanol subsidies, and BLM (Bureau of Land Management, not the other one). There are plenty of rural people who like and support their various subsidies, as well as those who like that they can graze their livestock on BLM land and effectively multiply the amount of available pastureland that they have with no direct personal cost. I suspect that very few of those rural residents "hate the government."