Digital Age Is Slow to Arrive in Rural America
Posted in: Government & Policy at 18/02/2011 20:48
After a couple of days in this part of rural Alabama, it is hard to complain about a dropped iPhone call or a Cee Lo video that takes a few seconds too long to load.
The county administrator cannot get broadband at her house. Neither can the sportswriter at The Thomasville Times.
Here in Coffeeville, the only computer many students ever touch is at the high school.
...
As the world embraces its digital age -- two billion people now use the Internet regularly -- the line delineating two Americas has become more broadly drawn. There are those who have reliable, fast access to the Internet, and those, like about half of the 27,867 people here in Clarke County, who do not.
To read this report in The New York Times in full, see:
www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/us/18broadband.html
Also see:
Survey of online access finds digital divide
A first-of-its-kind federal survey of online access found that Americans in lower-income and rural areas often have slower Internet connections than users in wealthier communities.
The data, released Thursday by the Commerce Department, also found that 5 to 10 percent of the nation does not have access to connections that are fast enough to download Web pages, photos and videos.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/17/AR2011021707234.html
