The Technology Challenge for High-Speed Internet Service in Rural America

According to a recently published study from the Pew Internet and American Life project rural Americans lag the rest of the nation when it comes to use of high-speed Internet at home. By the end of 2005, 24% of rural Americans had high-speed Internet connections at home compared with 39% of adult Americans living elsewhere. And yet, in rural America, the scarcity of services locally provided requires that many rural residents must travel long distances to gain access to, for example, high quality education or medical care.  And, being beyond the footprint of Broadband Internet can be a severe impediment to economic development.

The cause of this gap is principally the availability of high-speed Internet services.  The dominant technologies – DSL, used by about 40% of the market and offered through the copper phone lines and Hybrid Fiber Co-axial cable (50%) provided by Cable TV companies is costly to deploy and becomes increasingly unreliable the further the signal has to reach from its point of origin.

To overcome this challenge, more use must be made of rapidly improving technologies like wireless high-speed Internet access as both a method of delivery and transport as well as Broadband over Powerline as a method of delivery. While each technology has deployment challenges, together they can offer a cost effective high quality service for all customers – ranging from those interested in a dial-up replacement to those requiring business class DSL services.

Powerline Telco, Inc has recently concluded commercial and technical evaluations of both Wireless and BPL Internet access services and can develop the plan to quickly and cost effectively offer high-speed Internet services to the residents of rural communities. For more information, click here.