Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai has traversed the American Heartland, and other rural parts of the country where he’s spoken emphatically about breaking the “digital divide” between “those who can use cutting-edge communications services and those who do not.” Especially in rural America, the Internet has slowly gone from a want to a necessity with industries like agriculture, education, healthcare, and small businesses having to rely on a constant connection to perform day-to-day operations.
Pai is optimistic about a recently proposed bill that would provide tax incentives to internet service providers that expand broadband access to rural parts of the United States, areas that Pai calls “gigabit opportunity zones.” Pai hopes service providers will make the Internet more accessible in these regions (along with low-income neighborhoods) with the help of local governments, along with startups who could take advantage of expanding networks to help create jobs in these parts of the country.
Simply put, Pai is concerned that many rural parts of the United States are “on the wrong side of the digital divide,” while many urban areas (some of which face similar issues regarding Internet quality and access) are susceptible to improvement. Pai acknowledged that building a broadband network is a difficult and expensive task that requires a lot of effort and time, but believes encouraging these kinds of investments in economically disadvantaged communities can mitigate that aforementioned “digital divide” and benefit all Americans. The issue of readily access is bipartisan according to Pai, who said the FCC is making reforms on subsidizing programs to fund service where it’s currently nonexistent (along with other initiatives) as part of a multi-billion-dollar investment.
According to a 2016 FCC report, only four percent of Americans living in urban areas lack or have limited access to a fixed broadband connection. This figure, however, increases to 39 percent in rural America, which has posed as a major issue not only for longtime residents in these parts of the country, but for people who choose to move out to these areas (and their service providers). Many people in rural areas have no choice but to rely on fixed signals with sporadic quality to get online. Programs like Netflix and Hulu usually work, but the latter is known to reset its download stream in between commercial ads, which triggers multiple start and stops before the stream becomes fluid again.
Many people in rural America still physically purchase movies and video games because they don’t require hours or days to download on low-quality Internet connections. Broadband connectivity can be such a hassle for most of these people that many don’t even bother with the Internet, and rely on old-fashioned methods to get things done. Posting a paper ad on a corkboard in town, for example, is more efficient to accomplish a task than posting one online.
Dead zones aren’t uncommon in rural parts of the United States either, where people can’t get any kind of fixed wireless service. In these areas, people have to rely on satellite Internet, which has very low data caps. With file sizes getting larger along with the quality of streaming and graphics improving, current broadband conditions in rural America are having an increasingly difficult time to meet these demands and deliver quality real-time service to their customers. Hopes are high that the quality of Internet can improve in these parts of the country, and is definitely something worth keeping an eye on in the near future.
