Rural America Starting To Close Broadband Gap

Rural America is starting to catch up with urban America when it comes to broadband. A new Pew Foundation report indicates that rural areas showed faster growth in home broadband uptake duringthe past two years and the gap between rural and non-rural America in home broadband adoption, though still substantial, is narrowing.

By the end of 2005, 24% of rural Americans had high-speed internet connections at home compared with 39% of adult Americans living elsewhere. In 2003, 9% of rural Americans had broadband at home, less than half the rate (22%) in urban and suburban American. For overall Internet use – by whatever connection from any location – the penetration rate for adult rural Americans lagged the rest of the country by 8 percentage points at the end of 2005 (a 62% to 70% margin). This is about half the gap that existed at the end of 2003. Click to read report.