Rural High Speed Internet Providers and Access

Wonderful news is being joyfully spread across rural parts of America. Thanks to the announcement by the US Department of Agriculture, there are 16 states that will be awarded $103 million in grants in an effort to expand rural broadband internet. This grant money is being shared across the nation throughout Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Kentucky, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Nevada, Nebraska, California, and Wyoming. This is a huge effort taking place in order to close the large gaps that are still existing between rural and urban areas.

It has been said that one out of every ten Americans can’t get Internet connections that are fast enough to keep up with our world’s current standards. This includes teleconferencing and access to online classes for college, as well as many other common activities that are done online. In fact, there are plenty of schools themselves that are struggling to meet their needs with their current internet connection speeds. The USDA is hoping to put a huge dent in those statistics by offering this grant for the expansion of broadband internet across the United States. While it won’t fix this problem overnight or cover all areas in need of it, it is certainly a great starting point. It shows that rural broadband internet has been assessed and the issue is being addressed.

The main issue in the past is that the more remote areas of the United States were simply harder to justify the need for broadband internet. This is because they have low populations, high cost for the service provider, and/or the terrain was just too rough to consider. While these reasons can be seen as valid, they are not reason enough to basically force these people to live in the past. We live in a highly technological society, and the benefits far outweigh the detriments involved. There are too many uses for the Internet now, and the power of the Internet continues to grow with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. While satellite internet has been available for awhile, some areas cannot seem to hold its access, especially with constant bad weather. Some areas may also have access to wireless rural internet already. Hopefully, the outcome of this federally funded grant project will be proven successful and worthwhile to expand even more in the future. Closing the technological gaps between the rural and urban areas of America will do a lot of good. With this expansion comes more opportunities and you can’t really argue with that.