Wednesday, July 31, 2019

“Silver Buckshot” Needed to Crack Rural Digital Divide

By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief “We’ve been talking about the rural digital divide for about 20 years. New technology always comes to other areas before rural,” said Michael Santorelli, Director, Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute at New York Law School, during a panel discussion Tuesday on closing the digital divide.

Santorelli cited an FCC report that pegs the digital divide as affecting 19 million Americans, defining broadband internet speed as 25 mpbs download/3mbps upload.

Indiana State Senator Eric Koch said, “This is one of those issues where there is no silver bullet” to solve the issue. Rather, “It will take some silver buckshot” to fix. “If there were an easy answer it would have been solved years ago.”

In 2014, Indiana formed a rural broadband working group. Just defining broadband and what it means to be “served” took up several initial meetings, according to Koch. Continue Reading

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