Agreed.
International business operations should not be built in podunk.
Here we differ.
70 years ago there were undoubtedly people who said rural areas didn't need electricity because, by golly, the farms had never had electricity, that was just the way it was, and if you wanted modern conveniences you should move to the city.
We decided, correctly IMHO, that electricity is so fundamental to modernity that affordable access should be provided more-or-less universally. One can debate whether the rural electric cooperatives were the way to do it -- most of the world simply turned the job over to a state-run utility system -- but we retained an essentially privatized system through the REC's. One way or another, however, we got it done.
Today broadband has become essential for business development in many sectors. Areas without it will be redlined. Many rural areas have significant competitive advantages -- lower land costs, lower taxes, low-to-non-existent crime, no congestion, short commutes, a high quality workforce, etc. This isn't a new story; a fair share of branch plants, service centers, distribution hubs, etc. have been moving to rural areas for years. But today, they need broadband. Many rural areas will also attract folks who can and would prefer to work from home, provided they can get linked.
Do we really want to walk away from all that potential simply because Verizon, Comcast, or AT&T -- whoever owns the local metro hub (very often the county seat town) -- doesn't want to bother with providing service out to the county?
I can tell you what the political answer will be. Rural broadband is already a political issue. To this point, the political pressure has been contained. If most rural areas don't get served pretty quickly, however, the cable and phone companies are going to be looking at universal service requirements. That's more heavy-handed than the feds have been willing to be to this point, but it's the next step if the companies don't get off the dime and get it done.
In PA Verizon has received huge state dollars to expand the reach of their DSL. Billions of dollars have just enabled them to increase their profits. These dollars have extended DSL out by about 15 miles beyond the city limits where I live.
My company could have extended wireless services to everybody in the county for 750K or less - yet those dollars aren’t available to my company because they have already been promised to Verizon.
And while some companies may have extended to more rural areas they do so only if there are other essentials available like land and access to highways. We are 35 miles from the nearest interstate and 150 miles from a major airport. Unlikely this area will see an IBM relocate here even if we had fttp and gigabit to everywhere. In fact it would be interesting if ANYONE could give me the URL of a single company that relocated from a city to rural area for the sole reason that broadband was available.
And someone stated that companies are outsourcing work that could be done in the US if “Broadband” was available. Hogwash! People in the US don’t work for 3 bucks an hour plus in this area one would be hard pressed to find any skilled worker who could do a technical job. So the workforce has to be relocated from somewhere else at huge cost. Cheaper to build a facility in India, bring the broadband there (probably at a cost of about 4 or 5K per mile), hire a bunch of people for high wages there, but 10% what it would cost here (not to mention the cost of benefits here - probably don’t exist in India) and save a bunch of bucks.
The extension of broadband is like building sewer systems. We see these big tax dollars going to extend sewer plants all over the place. The taxpayers are sold this with the statement that if they build sewers and water systems development will happen - hasn’t happened here in the 20 years we have been told this. Similarly with broadband - the availability of DSL and Cable hasn’t created an in-rush of residents and probably won’t. True it makes it easier to sell your house when you move to the big city for a job that pays more than the bare minimum, but there are no big corporations lined up to buy the unused farmland around here.
And finally ANYONE can get broadband. I repeat ANYONE can get broadband. You just have to pay for it. And that is the crux of the issue. People in my area of the country have this dollar general mentality that says that broadband should cost 5 bucks per month and they won’t pay more. Verizon can’t even entice them with $9.99 per month! And while government officials are clamoring for more broadband only about 30% of the companies in this city actually have broadband, the rest see no need for it! Fully 1/2 don’t even have a dialup connection.
The cost to deploy broadband increases with distance. It makes no economic sense for any company - whether Verizon or AT&T to build facility that won’t ever make money. Similarly it makes no sense for my company to do that - I’m not about to invest 3/4 of a million bucks with a return on investment of 8 years or more - I will if people want to pay for the service but they don’t.
So this whole broadband issue is one of perception. Kind of like the global warming debates - either you believe that everyone is entitled to broadband or you don’t. I believe people need to live where the infrastructure meets their needs. At no time should my tax dollars be spent to make the infrastructure meet the needs of the few telecommuters who chose to live on 100 acres 25 miles from the nearest town. I have moved several times in my adult life - each move has been to go where the work is. And each time I moved I chose to live in an area that best met my needs at that time - had I been a telecommuter I would have moved to a city where facilities permitted that.