At one time, America’s phone companies and electricity providers had little business incentive to make sure their services stretched into the nation’s rural hinterlands. The cost of stringing phone and powerlines out to remote communities simply was not worthwhile for the relatively few customers to be had there.
Now, rural communities suffer the same lack of access when it comes to internet service.
In 2017, nearly one-third of rural Americans, including more than 20 percent of the country’s farms, did not have access to broadband internet service.
The Blade’s parent company, Block Communications also owns Buckeye Broadband.
In Ohio, many of these underserved communities are in the rural southeastern corner of the state. But many also are in Rep. Bob Latta’s (R., Bowling Green) district.
Mr. Latta has made rural broadband access a priority, bringing the FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to tour the region recently.
He took the commissioner through small communities where businesses cannot get reliable access to the web, where students can’t get online to do homework, where access to America’s digital infrastructure is not available.
Utilities filled in the gaps for power and phone service in the 1930s and 1940s thanks to grants from Roosevelt-era Rural Electrification Administration. That agency has a modern successor, the Rural Utilities Service, which also has subsidized expansion of internet access since the mid-1990s.
But still, rural broadband access is still out of reach for too many.
Mr. Latta has introduced legislation to address the issue. His Precision Agriculture Connectivity Act was rolled into the 2018 Farm Bill and identifies policies to help the agricultural community better utilize innovations like self-driving machinery with expanded access to rural broadband.
More such measures and a focused federal policy to expand broadband access will be necessary to make sure all rural communities have adequate internet service.
This is more than a convenience. America’s economy, its health care system, its educational system, and more rely on everyone being able to connect. Congress must make rural broadband access a priority.
First Published April 2, 2019, 4:00 a.m.
