Bolstered by billions in federal stimulus money, an effort to expand broadband Internet access to rural areas is under way, an ambitious 21st-century infrastructure project with parallels to the New Deal electrification of the nation's hinterlands in the 1930s and 1940s.
President Barack Obama emphasized the importance of Internet access in his State of the Union address last week.
...
In the Depression, it was power to the people - for farm equipment and living-room lamps, cow-milking machines and kitchen appliances. Now, it's online access - to YouTube and digital downloads, to videoconferencing and Facebook, to eBay and Twitter.
"Rural areas all across the country are wrestling with this, somewhat desperately," said Paul Costello, executive director of the Vermont Council on Rural Development. "Young people who grow up with the media will not live where they can't be connected to digital culture. So most rural communities have been behind the eight ball."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/29/AR2011012902062.html?wpisrc=nl_pmtech
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