Rural Broadband Costs Require Further Subsidy Support, NTCA/USTelecom Study Says
Rural broadband requires "significant upfront investment," with subsidies "essential for network providers to meet deployment challenges in high-cost areas," said an NTCA/USTelecom release on a study they commissioned by CostQuest Associates with Parsons Applied Economics. "Like other networks, broadband communications…
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networks exhibit economies of linear density, which create an economic barrier to deployment across vast regions," the release said. It's "commercially unviable to deploy network infrastructure at affordable consumer rates in a rural environment without some form of subsidy,” said CostQuest CEO James Stegeman. “If building broadband in rural communities was easy, we would not have a digital divide,” said NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield. “Broadband providers are among the leading investors in American infrastructure, with over $1.6 trillion invested since 1996,” said USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter. “Connecting the hardest-to-reach communities will also require a dedicated federal investment so every American, in urban and rural communities, can benefit.”