PD: Federal stimulus funds to improve rural Internet access
Post date: Mar 30, 2009 8:03:06 AM
Here is a story in today's Post Dispatch about Wildwood, a small rural community out beyond Ellsville, using Federal stimulus funds to build . The demand for low-cost wireless Internet is increasing as more communities see it as the most cost effective approach to deploy broadband access to a large area.
Here is a salient quote from the article. Large Internet providers refer to markets like rural towns and low-income urban communities as "impossibly low margin," meaning it's too expensive for them to set up wired Internet service and maintain their desired profit margin.
They say the big providers — AT&T and Charter Communications — claim it doesn't make sense, from a business standpoint, to reach those isolated residents: A subdivision with 50 homes is much less appealing than one with 500.
Indeed, other people in St. Louis are looking to adapt their projects to the new opportunity of stimulus funds. To quote the PD article:
Others are eager to see if they can adapt ongoing projects to meet stimulus requirements. Such is the case for the St. Louis Regional Exchange, which recently hired a lobbyist in Washington to keep an eye on things.
Indeed, here is another story in the PD about the same Internet project in Wildwood, titled "How important is high speed Internet access to you." Please comment at will.