New Life For Rural Broadband - Maybe

In rural America, high-speed internet access, or broadband, is still hard to come by. For many country livers, broadband access is on par with the Rural Electrification Project in the 1930s. President Obama named his pick to head the FCC today. Jules Genachowki is an advocate for broadband access, not just as a technology, but a tool for solving energy and environment problems and improving health care. His appointment and the new federal stimulus package could breath new life into rural broadband.

Lawmakers have earmarked up to seven billion dollars in the stimulus bill, but there are serious disagreements over how effective that money will be. It’s questionable how many jobs – if any – rural broadband will help create. And in many cases, laying new pipes in the ground isn’t the problem. Instead, it’s the legal and business hurdles to bringing existing broadband access to people’s homes – what folks in the industry call the “last mile.”

So we turn to someone who actually works in rural america, and deals with this issue on a daily basis. Brett Glass is the founder and owner of Lariat, a rural internet service provider in Laramie, Wyoming. He joins us today from an industry conference in Silicon Valley.

The New York Times: "Internet Money in Fiscal Plan: Wise or Waste?"

Daily Yonder: Billion-Dollar Decisions Depend on Rural Broadband

International Herald-Tribune: "Expanding broadband to bail out economies"

(Photo courtesy sheagunther via Flickr/Creative Commons)