State and local governments have enacted different types of legislation aimed at improving broadband availability. Two unstudied policies of interest are: (1) “dig-once” policies requiring state-funded construction projects to notify local internet providers about the opportunity to bury...

Replaced with revised version of poster 07/20/10.

Rural communities suffer from both supply and demand-side disadvantages when dealing with Internet access. Telecommunications companies are less likely to provide them with needed infrastructure due to lower population densities, and they also tend to have lower levels of specific factors known...

As residential high-speed Internet access has become more prevalent, the nature of the rural-urban digital divide in access has shifted. In 2000, dial-up access rates in rural households lagged behind their urban counterparts by 11 percentage points. By 2003, however, dial-up access rates were...

Broadband, or high-speed Internet access, has changed the way our society operates; yet there are still parts of rural American where the connection is lagging behind. Closing the ‘digital divide’ is a priority on rural America’s agenda, with government programs focusing on providing...