Rural US Falling Further Behind Due to Broadband Gap, Pai Says
The rural broadband gap is exacerbating the exodus from small-town America, Chairman Ajit Pai said Thursday at the Kansas Broadband Conference, according to prepared remarks. He said even in rural states like Kansas, projected population growth in coming decades is…
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expected to be almost exclusively in metropolitan areas, and how the nation addresses rural broadband connectivity issues could affect whether rural population declines accelerate or, conversely, reverse themselves. Pai outlined steps the agency is taking to tackle the digital divide, such as the Mobility Fund and efforts to eliminate bureaucratic red tape in wireless and wireline infrastructure deployment. He said the agency's June approval of OneWeb's U.S. market access application for its broadband satellite constellation (see 1706220039), as well as pending similar applications, "could be a promising option for those living in hard-to-serve areas." He pushed again his Gigabit Opportunity Zones idea of tax breaks to encourage private-sector gigabit broadband deployment (see 1703300011 and 1609130061).