Rural Broadband Growth Increasing Significantly

The USDA’s latest look at rural American broadband shows that it’s growing significantly in the past 15 years.

John Cromartie with the Economic Research Service said, “There’s been a very large increase in the use of broadband since 2001 In rural areas it went up from two to 61 percent between 2001 and 2016.”

Subscription service had a dip once cellular data options were available to those in rural areas, but even since 2010, Cromartie said it’s still growing.

“The changes it shows just over the last six years indicate that there’s been a fairly significant expansion in terms of broadband use improvement in many counties in rural areas.”

Some rural locals that are isolated or in high poverty areas still don’t have access to broadband internet access.