‘Moving in the Right Direction’ to Bridge the Digital Divide in Rural America

We knew that the urban/rural divide on internet services was a wide one, and COVID exposed that in an even bigger way.

“We’ve made a lot of progress since then, both with federal and state money and private capital as well,” says Jeff Johnston, lead economist for digital infrastructure at CoBank. “So, we’re moving in the right direction, but we’re not where we need to be quite yet. There is $42.5 billion that was earmarked out of the Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act, and specifically, it’s the BEAD program within that piece of legislation. That’s exciting because that’s an unprecedented amount of capital, an unprecedented amount of money that the government has set aside to support building out rural broadband networks to get those who are not connected, connected.”

The program hasn’t made as much progress as was first hoped, but he’s anticipating more progress to come in the months ahead. Johnston says rural electric cooperatives are the unsung heroes, doing a lot of work to close the divide.

“In terms of the work that they’ve done building fiber to the home networks for their members who don’t have any connectivity, and they continue to do that. So, kudos to them. They’re playing a critical role in bridging the digital divide in rural America, as are rural telephone cooperatives and privately owned and managed rural telecom operators as well, so it’s kind of a multipronged approach.”

Johnston says future 6G wireless development will be incredibly helpful for farmers to ramp up precision agriculture.

As for the money in the BEAD Program, he says it’ll be interesting to see how the money gets doled out. Hopefully, it addresses what Johnston says is one of the biggest challenges to rural broadband deployment- copper wiring in rural areas.

Source: NAFB News Service