The poor state of affordable quality broadband access on many Indian Reservations in the US checks off all the boxes for why broadband infrastructure needs huge improvements. But those are not the only communities facing broadband lack.
The US GOV has muddled definitions of what is “rural” and what is “urban” in the US, and the FCC has not done a good job reporting where “good enough broadband” exists. The FCC maps have been notoriously inadequate; there may be some improvement forthcoming, but then again, there may be further delays, which would add still more delays to broadband infrastructure rollout.
Some of this is because drawing lines between who is in a rural area and who lives in an urban area, works only from a good distance above the earth…the closer one gets to the ground level where people live, the more impossible it is to draw a precise line of demarcation. Maybe Google would know, or Facebook, but they might also not want to tell.
For one example close to home, Las Cruces is a city in Dona Ana County, and the former one might expect to be urban. However, the city boundaries include huge areas that are hardly urban, and can be difficult to distinguish from the unincorporated areas in Dona Ana county nearby, especially when it comes to what broadband infrastructure is available. The same is true for other western cities, including the 600+K El Paso. whose city limits are way out “in the boonies”.
And of course, there are many areas inside urban designations that lack affordable quality broadband access, which have poverty in common with rural areas, but otherwise have different broadband infrastructure problems.
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However we might determine appropriate demarcations, and MO to meet needs, investing in broadband infrastructure offers hope for those multitudes who need some way to thrive and succeed currently absent or in rare supply.
Students are still struggling to get internet. The infrastructure bill could help | KRWG