arstechnica.com — Rural counties that get on the broadband bandwagon see more and better-paying jobs, a new USDA report says. But high-speed Internet penetration in the countryside still lags behind cities by big percentages.
Aug 20, 2009 View in Crawl 4
crowbarredAug 20, 2009
I will get more diggs .... if i don't comment
regeyaAug 21, 2009
The situation's improving. Verizon FINALLY offered DSL where I live. Once they finally hooked mine up, it works fantastically well.Sadly, where I live is almost within biking distance of SIU-C and it took until 2009 for it to happen...
wastelanderAug 21, 2009
Exactly. That's the problem with this sort of study--these two groups (those with broadband and those without) are almost certainly going to differ in several other characteristics as well. Did they even try to control for these differences?
ushereAug 21, 2009
the country suffers because of telstra.i live in the country and run a very successful business based on broadband.i consider 'billions' wasted building roads for ever more cars to jam the city centres.
bigbri069Aug 21, 2009
I live in "rural" America. My home is less than 2.5 miles from a town/city where both cable and DSL are offered, yet I cannot get cable internet or DSL. The population density isn't enough for Time Warner to run the cable lines and we are too far from a central office for DSL. Clearwire is not available in my area yet. Forget FIOS, a new iceage will come before I get that! I am stuck with Hughesnet satellite internet (which I have) or dial-up. Paying $65/month, I am capped at 250 mb per day download at a 1.0 Mbps down (which it never gets) and 128 Kbps upload. I would love to be able to use services like Hulu, Netflix streaming, Xbox Live, etc, but I cannot due to the 250mb bandwidth cap. I have to download any of my system updates at work and bring them home on my iPod to load.
kslodicAug 21, 2009
Even if there wasn't a bandwidth cap, the network latency makes Xbox Live or any other online gaming almost impossible. Bandwidth isn't monitored between 2 am and 7 am, though, so you can schedule all your system updates between those times.
bigbri069Aug 21, 2009
Tell me about it. The latency is horrible. I know about the unmetered bandwidth 2 and 7, but try downloading the latest Apple OSX 10.5.8 update at 759mb. It is unlikely to finish in those 5 hours.
sirdarksoulAug 21, 2009
Broadband?! There are entire counties on the west side of the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee that don't even have cell phone coverage!