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Most small towns now have cell phone access. It is the places between small towns that lack cell towers.
The other rule is that the Federal Government has required fiber access to their facilities in many parts of the country.
Here in central Washington the Bonneville Power Administration required fiber access from the county owned dams and electrical facilities on the Columbia River to their headquarters in Portland. So the public utilities just went ahead and ran fiber to the taxpayers homes. After a two year fight with the Governor of Washington state we had fiber being strung to our homes.
I noticed in rural Arizona that the Federal Government has required fiber for the border facilities there and it looks like several small towns are about to get the right to jump on the fiber optic lines and bring high speed internet to middle of somewhere.
Most small towns now have cell phone access. It is the places between small towns that lack cell towers.
Perhaps nationwide. I am not sure, I know that here in Maine such is not the case.
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... Here in central Washington the Bonneville Power Administration required fiber access from the county owned dams and electrical facilities on the Columbia River to their headquarters in Portland. So the public utilities just went ahead and ran fiber to the taxpayers homes. After a two year fight with the Governor of Washington state we had fiber being strung to our homes.
I stayed with a friend in the small farming community of Crookston, Minnesota, population about 7,000. They got 35 down / 5 up, and that was over 802.11g, I believe. I could stream Youtube videos in 1080p without buffering! I don't know whether they had DSL, cable, or fiber.
I, on the other hand, have to live with 3G (not WiMAX) Clearwire wireless internet service, which on a good day delivers about 1.6 down. Upload speeds are capped at 256 kbps. I'm investigating getting Verizon 4G LTE, but that's $120 / month for a 30 GB cap.
I would say most small towns (of 500-1,000 and up) in Minnesota have some form of wireline broadband. I know PBTV was a pioneer in wiring towns north of here with VDSL back in the mid-2000s. However, outside of the cities, broadband becomes spottier. Some rural homes can get DSL, others not. For them, there are the less-than-adequate options of satellite, fixed wireless (if available), and cell phone wireless.
I stayed with a friend in the small farming community of Crookston, Minnesota, population about 7,000. They got 35 down / 5 up, and that was over 802.11g, I believe. I could stream Youtube videos in 1080p without buffering! I don't know whether they had DSL, cable, or fiber.
I, on the other hand, have to live with 3G (not WiMAX) Clearwire wireless internet service, which on a good day delivers about 1.6 down. Upload speeds are capped at 256 kbps. I'm investigating getting Verizon 4G LTE, but that's $120 / month for a 30 GB cap.
I would say most small towns (of 500-1,000 and up) in Minnesota have some form of wireline broadband. I know PBTV was a pioneer in wiring towns north of here with VDSL back in the mid-2000s. However, outside of the cities, broadband becomes spottier. Some rural homes can get DSL, others not. For them, there are the less-than-adequate options of satellite, fixed wireless (if available), and cell phone wireless.
If you are only interested in LTE for internet access, then check out Mellenicom. They resell data only plans, and the $69 "Hotspot Plan" is actually Verizon LTE. It has a 20 GB cap, but for 120 you could get two plans and have 40 GB. The "unlimited" and BYOD plans are through Sprint, so if you have good Sprint coverage, you might be able to use that as well.
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