Broadband Access: Exploring Internet Connectivity by U.S. Community Type

By Dante Chinni/Patchwork Nation via PBS Newshour

The federal government wants you to have access to a broadband connection. Badly. The Federal Communications Commission has held dozens of workshops and filed away more than 23,000 comments on its National Broadband Plan...

If broadband is indeed key to all those elements, how close is the United States to achieving a goal of universal access to broadband? Well, in some of Patchwork Nation's 12 county types, availability seems to be very close to reality. In others, however, much work remains to be done, according to data collected by Connected Nation and analyzed by Patchwork Nation...

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Broadband Connectivity Available Across Bell Co.

by Carroll Wilson/Temple Daily Telegraph

Broadband connectivity is available to almost every household in Bell County, according to a report released this week. That doesn't mean, though, that every household subscribes to the service.

Nearly 100 percent of households here have access to high-speed broadband, as well. That excludes mobile wireless and satellite broadband, according to The Broadband Landscape in Texas, a report produced by a nonprofit called Connected Texas.

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Grand Marais Wants Broadband to Open Doors but Not Wreck the Allure of Remoteness

by Jennifer Vogel, Minnesota Public Radio

Housed in a converted Baptist church in Grand Marais, Cook County Higher Education isn't your typical community college.

It's not accredited, first of all, nor does it have a staff of teachers or even many classrooms. In fact, most of its classes are taught somewhere else, Bemidji State University, for example, or Hibbing Community College. Students take the classes via Skype on the Internet or interactive television...

...According to a recent report by ConnectMinnesota, fewer than half the households in Cook County have access to internet download speeds of at least 3 megabits per second (discounting mobile wireless). This places Cook County third from the bottom among Minnesota's 87 counties when it comes to connectivity...

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Telecommuting Levels the Field For Some Rural Minnesotans

by Jennifer Vogel, Minnesota Public Radio

Rose Buer commutes to her job as a software engineer in Bloomington every morning.

But she doesn't drive from Minneapolis or St. Paul or another suburb. She makes the short trek from her 10-acre farm to a small office in Dawson, next to a hair salon and the Dawson Sentinel, the newspaper that serves the town of 1,300 people in western Minnesota...

...A recent study by Connect Minnesota and the Minnesota Broadband Task Force found that 37 percent of Minnesotans work from home at least occasionally; twenty percent telework on a regular basis. What's more, the report says, "Three out of ten Minnesota adults who are not currently in the workforce say they would work if empowered to do so through teleworking. This includes 17% of retirees, nearly three out of five unemployed adults, and almost one-third of homemakers."...

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Area Businesses Not Wired to Succeed

By Michelle Casady/Bryan-College Station Eagle

A survey recently released by the Economic Development Foundation of Brenham revealed business owners there view the lack of reliable access to high-speed Internet service as the biggest hindrance to growth...

...The nonprofit Connected Texas, which was tasked by the Department of Agriculture with developing detailed maps of broadband coverage across the state, released a county-by-county estimate of the percentage of households that have access to broadband services.

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Nonprofit releases broadband study

By Valentino Lucio/San Antonio Express-News

Connected Texas released its first assessment of the broadband market in Texas, revealing that nearly all households in Bexar County have terrestrial broadband service availability.

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Nonprofit-releases-broadband-study-1257990.php#ixzz1HRUuhNS8

Study: 62 percent of Texans Use Broadband

From the Austin American-Statesman:

Ninety-six percent of Texas households have access to broadband but only 62 percent are using it, according to the latest study by Connected Texas.

The report, "The Broadband Landscape in the State of Texas," can be viewed at http://www.connectedtx.org/. It offers statewide, regional and local data for community leaders to consider how best to expand broadband services...

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