Rural internet
[4] The attitude in the U.S. has largely shifted since Powell's remarks, however, as under the current administration and President Joe Biden there is a common belief that "broadband is infrastructure" and that is must be treated as such.
While developed countries such as the U.S. face the challenge of providing universal service (ensuring that everyone has access to internet service in the home), developing countries face the challenge of providing universal access (ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to make use of the internet).
[6] The United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service has provided numerous studies and data on the Internet in rural America.
[10] However, many studies have contested FCC findings, claiming a greater number of Americans are without access to internet services at sufficient speeds.
[13] One study in particular examined the ways in which inaccessibility for rural and "quasi-rural" residents affects their daily life, conceptualizing issues of accessibility as a form of socioeconomic inequity.
[14] This inaccessibility leads many to experience sentiments of social isolation as residents feel disconnected from current events, cultural trends, and even close friends and family members.
"[14][15] In Canada, when pressed by Member of Parliament David de Burgh Graham, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities did not see access to the internet a right.
Usually, neighbors are the responsible to collect the necessary money to buy the network equipment that will do a Wireless link with another zone that already has internet access.
[20] Frustrated by the slow progress being made by private telecoms companies, some rural communities have built their own broadband networks, such as the B4RN initiative.
Companies such as Sigfox, Cisco Systems and Fujitsu are delving into the agricultural market, offering innovative solutions to common problems in countries such as the U.S., Japan, Ireland and Uruguay.
Currently, rural areas often depend on small, unreliable ISP providers and scrape by "siphoning from surplus data and bandwidth capacity, creating their own systems of redundancy, or (in some cases) launching community-based, local ISP when large incumbent providers fail to show an interest in the area.
"[29] In the US, regulatory mandates have helped extend basic telecommunications to rural areas while mitigating market failure.
"[29] Issues of rural connectivity have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and reveal how "poor management of the Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes phone and internet access in rural areas, has meant some companies get the money without delivering on the promised numbers of households served or service quality.
"[30] The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently released an overview of initiatives based on "bridging the digital divide for all Americans,"[32] some of these include:
