rural broadband

Here in 2020, in the midst of a flourishing digital revolution, high-speed Internet connectivity is now within reach of practically everyone, everywhere, right? Not exactly. The high-tech future may be moving full steam ahead in cities and suburbs, but rural regions still face a huge digital divide. Fortunately, there’s good news on the horizon: connecting rural regions is getting easier and less expensive every year.

The internet has changed nearly every aspect of American life. It has transformed how we shop, listen to music, learn, do business, bank… and connect with each other. With so many Americans now working or learning from home, our dependence on it has grown. Yet, in dark contrast to internet usage growth, the gap between those who have broadband access and those who do not is growing, too.

There are still Internet access disparities between residents of rural and urban areas. And the digital divide between lower-income and higher-income communities can only be closed with new approaches and solutions.

Back in December last year, Cisco led a 30 partner consortium to enter a UK government competition, to design, build and run innovative 5G Testbed and Trial programs. We won! Read more here...

Cisco is leading a consortium entering into the UK Government 5G Competition. This "5G RuralFirst Partnership" is focused on tackling some of the challenges of rural 5G deployment.

Last week, in Part 1, I blogged about the bizarre association of queues at my local ski centre and unreliable access to cloud payment services. Being located in an...

Back in 2010, not long after I started blogging here on Cisco.com, I discussed some of the challenges customers were fearing regarding the feasibility of cloud adoption. In my market...