FILE - Carl Roath, left, a worker with the Mason County (Wash.) Public Utility District, pulls fiber optic cable off of a spool, as he works with a team to install broadband internet service to homes in a rural area surrounding Lake Christine near Belfair, Wash., on Aug. 4, 2021. Federal officials announced plans Thursday, July 28, 2022, to spend $401 million in grants and loans to expand the reach and improve the speed of internet for rural residents, tribes and businesses in 11 West and Central U.S. states.
FILE - Carl Roath, left, a worker with the Mason County (Wash.) Public Utility District, pulls fiber optic cable off of a spool, as he works with a team to install broadband internet service to homes in a rural area surrounding Lake Christine near Belfair, Wash., on Aug. 4, 2021. Federal officials announced plans Thursday, July 28, 2022, to spend $401 million in grants and loans to expand the reach and improve the speed of internet for rural residents, tribes and businesses in 11 West and Central U.S. states.
Check out WITF’s The Spark for more information on broadband internet access.
Reliable internet now touches nearly every part of modern life, but access remains uneven in many rural areas across Pennsylvania.
Fiber optic cables can cost $45,000 to $95,000 per mile to install. In a sprawling, rural area, that can get expensive quickly. But now, private industries are set to receive public funds to incentivize the expansion of broadband access into otherwise unprofitable communities.
Christopher Ali, telecommunications professor at Penn State, said the expense of rural broadband has left some communities behind.
“We’ve seen decades of abandonment or neglect of the private market in rural land, remote and indigenous areas,” he said to WITF’s The Spark.
The Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program was initiated as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Act and allocated $65 billion to broadband across the country, and $42 billion will go to high-cost areas, Ali said.
Pennsylvania will likely start getting that money within the next six months, according to Ali.
Zachary Adams with the Center for Rural Pennsylvania said accessible internet means more people moving into the area and economic development.
“Without that opportunity, without that infrastructure, those rural communities across the Commonwealth are going to continue to face significant challenges as it relates to the population,” he said.
This gap between rural and urban internet access was especially obvious during the COVID-19 pandemic when in-person education and work shifted online. At that time, 42 million Americans, mostly from rural areas, didn’t have access to a broadband network.
