Rural Resilience - 6          05/27 09:22

   Rural Broadband Has Come Far, but Gaps Remain

   Federal investment has brought high-speed internet to more parts of rural 
America since the COVID-19 pandemic, but the digital divide persists.

Russ Quinn
DTN Staff Reporter

   Editor's Note: As the U.S. marks 250 years, DTN's "Rural Resilience" series 
looks beyond the farm fields and fencerows to examine the struggles and 
opportunities rural America faces. Today's story looks at how rural broadband 
has made significant strides through federal investment and infrastructure 
expansion, yet millions of Americans in rural areas are still waiting for 
reliable, high-speed internet access.

   **

   Five years ago, Kenny Reinke had to drive to town or sit in his pickup truck 
to get an internet signal at his Neligh, Nebraska, farm. Today, he has two 
high-speed providers -- a line-of-sight tower and buried fiber optic cable.

   "We have a couple different options we didn't have back then," Reinke said.

   His story illustrates the dramatic, if uneven, progress in rural broadband 
since the COVID-19 pandemic exposed how far behind rural America had fallen. 
While the crisis devastated communities, it also triggered unprecedented 
investment in rural internet infrastructure, fundamentally changing 
connectivity across much of the countryside.

   The numbers tell the story: Rural home broadband subscriptions jumped from 
58% in 2018 to 71% by 2025, according to Pew Research Center. Federal programs 
poured nearly $47 billion into expansion efforts, with the Broadband Equity, 
Access and Deployment (BEAD) program alone providing $42.45 billion to all 50 
states.

   Yet, the transformation remains incomplete. Inaccurate mapping continues to 
slow progress, and some rural residents remain disconnected despite living 
close to fiber-optic lines.

   PROGRESS SINCE THE PANDEMIC

   Pew Research showed that 65% of all U.S. adults subscribed to home broadband 
internet in 2018. By mid-2025, that number had climbed to 78%. When rural areas 
are broken out from urban and suburban areas, the data shows that while rural 
home broadband subscriptions rose 13 percentage points, overall subscriptions 
among rural households continued to lag those of both urban and suburban 
households. Just 58% of rural residents subscribed to home internet in 2018 
compared to 67% of urban residents and 70% of suburban residents. By 2025, 
rural subscriptions reached 71%, while urban grew to 75% and suburban increased 
to 84%.

   Rural residents, however, utilize smartphones at higher rates than their 
urban and suburban counterparts. In 2019, 19% of rural residents relied solely 
on smartphones for internet access compared with 17% of urban and 13% of 
suburban residents. By 2025, rural smartphone dependence increased to 20%, 
while urban inched up to 19% and suburban fell slightly to 12%. In rural areas 
without broadband, many use their cellphone as an inexpensive way to access the 
internet.

   Rural telecommunication companies "put their foot on the gas" to improve 
rural broadband in the years since COVID, according to Shirley Bloomfield, who, 
at the time DTN/Progressive Farmer interviewed her earlier this year, was 
serving as CEO of NTCA: The Rural Broadband Association. She has since retired 
after serving 16 years in the position and more than 30 years advocating for 
rural telecom providers.

   The telecommunication companies were aided by the Infrastructure Investment 
and Jobs Act signed into law in November 2021. The approximately $1.2-trillion 
federal statute aimed to upgrade U.S. transportation, utilities and broadband. 
Both the BEAD program and the ReConnect Loan and Grant Program -- run through 
USDA -- provided funding, with ReConnect spending roughly $4.4 billion to 
expand internet access in rural areas.

   "These programs have provided billions of dollars to the states to improve 
their rural broadband," Bloomfield said. "Without this money, many in rural 
areas would never have been covered by high-speed internet."

   MAPPING ISSUES SLOW EXPANSION

   One major hindrance to expanding rural broadband has been the accuracy -- or 
inaccuracy -- of maps detailing which rural areas have high-speed internet 
coverage and which don't.

   Bloomfield said efforts are being made to improve these mapping issues. The 
BEAD program was supposed to provide new mapping data to determine who is 
covered and which areas need to be prioritized. Carriers are self-reporting, 
and this process is more accurate than in the past.

   Still, mapping is not completely accurate, and it's difficult to fully 
assess the expansion of internet access in rural areas. Some providers might 
exaggerate their coverage areas, while others might not report their actual 
coverage.

   "It is far from a perfect system," Bloomfield said.

   Working with states can improve mapping accuracy. Many states have set up 
broadband offices to handle local mapping and distribute federal money. "This 
will certainly help the accuracy of the mapping process," she said.

   Ray "Bubba" Sorensen is an artist, small-business owner and Iowa House 
Representative for District 23. He ran for office on the issue of rural 
broadband coverage in central Iowa in 2019 and was elected. He begged the state 
for $5 million to improve rural internet before COVID hit, and afterward, 
funding increased to $100 million. Sorensen said the federal money has helped 
considerably, but there's a lot of red tape. Many federal rules and regulations 
have slowed the flow of money to rural communications companies.

   "Our telcos worked their butts off to improve our access to the internet," 
Sorensen said.

   When first elected, Sorensen regularly received calls from constituents 
about not having access to high-speed internet. In the years following COVID, 
those calls have been much fewer.

   UNEVEN ACCESS PERSISTS

   The expansion of rural broadband is as varied as the residents who live, 
raise families and operate businesses in these vast regions.

   Reinke, the northeastern Nebraska corn and soybean farmer, said his area has 
seen great advances in internet coverage since COVID, aiding both his family 
and his farming operation. His three school-aged children use the now-available 
internet at home without having to drive to another location. Having better 
high-speed internet has allowed him to use precision ag technologies, 
specifically real-time kinematic (RTK), in all aspects of crop production.

   He can operate the technology without too many difficulties at various field 
locations. He does have one field in a valley with trees around it. "It 
(internet connection) does drop out there in spots," Reinke said. "Sometimes, I 
have to take over manually, and our planter still has markers, so I can still 
operate like normal."

   One thing Reinke would like to see improve is better cellphone coverage. In 
many spots, it's difficult to make a basic phone call. The Reinkes have a 
cellphone booster in their house, which is needed just to hold a call. "The 
cell(phone) world is still lacking here," he said.

   Four hundred and sixty-five miles straight south, Karen Eifert Jones has 
great cellphone coverage but limited options for internet service. The 
Waukomis, Oklahoma, farmer and cow-calf producer operates off the data from her 
phone. Fiber is available in her home area of north-central Oklahoma but not 
yet at her farm.

   During COVID, to complete a state-mandated online training course, Eifert 
Jones had to drive a mile away to her elderly mother's driveway just to access 
the internet from her cellphone. Her daughter had to utilize her grandmother's 
basement for school. Eifert Jones' sister and brother-in-law wanted to move 
back to the area during COVID but couldn't because his job required high-speed 
internet to work from home. Instead, they moved elsewhere.

   Fiber still hasn't been run off the main road. From talking to the local 
telecommunication company, Eifert Jones said the cost is too high to add one 
more mile of fiber.

   Eifert Jones' farming operation doesn't use GPS technology for several 
reasons. The many issues with local internet access, several different brands 
of machinery and water limitations with their five-crop rotation don't allow 
them to utilize the technology. However, they do use spreadsheets for livestock 
recordkeeping. Her son, Weston, recently joined the operation and uses Google 
spreadsheets via their cellphones.

   "Someday, we hope to get 'real' internet, especially as my son wants to use 
drone technology more. But I guess you can't miss what you never had," Eifert 
Jones said.

   MULTIPLE TECHNOLOGIES FILL THE GAPS

   The different forms of rural broadband -- fiber, direct line of sight, 
satellite, cellular signal -- are potentially the keys to providing all rural 
areas with high-speed internet.

   One area using different forms is western South Dakota, the "West River" 
area. More than half of the state's land area is located west of the Missouri 
River, but it has only about a third of the population.

   Logan Vandermark, South Dakota State University Extension precision 
livestock technology field specialist, said quality internet is a major 
challenge for ranchers wanting to incorporate precision ag products. Newer 
technologies such as cameras, collars and virtual fencing are products 
producers want to add, but they need internet access to work.

   There are some areas covered by fiber, but larger areas are not. Producers 
in areas without fiber utilize cellular coverage, satellite and direct 
line-of-sight systems.

   Many producers utilize the "LoRa" system -- short for "long range" -- which 
can be thought of as a radio signal technology similar to Wi-Fi or cellular 
signal. Using a system of a base station and line-of-sight towers, an internet 
signal can be created.

   "We have someone east of Wall (South Dakota) covering 3,500 acres with a 
base station and two towers who is using (livestock) collars," Vandermark said.

   Livestock producers can use this precision ag technology, often called 
"smart collars," to monitor livestock movement, health and grazing -- all from 
a computer or smartphone. Virtual fencing, which creates invisible boundaries 
for livestock, is also technology livestock producers could utilize with 
high-speed internet access.

   Other producers utilize services like Starlink and cellular phone coverage. 
Vandermark said what's most important is for the technology to be cost 
effective. How expensive internet access will be in the future will directly 
affect how well these newer precision technologies are adopted in western South 
Dakota.

   LOOKING AHEAD

   NTCA's Bloomfield believes "a bucket of technologies" is how underserved 
areas will see rural broadband in the future. The regions will be covered by 
different forms of service, and speed will also need to improve.

   Both upload and download speeds matter in the different applications rural 
residents utilize. One survey showed that 26% of consumers want 1-gig internet 
(1 gigabit per second) -- ultrahigh-speed broadband service.

   Some rural residents will see the addition of rural broadband in the future, 
while other areas could see an upgrade in speeds. The increase in speeds could 
help both households and rural businesses.

   As one example, Bloomfield specifically pointed to rural medical clinics 
that already utilize telemedicine practices. In the future, rural residents 
could have procedures done over the internet and not have to travel several 
hours to larger community hospitals. This type of telemedicine is being done 
today in Tennessee with Vanderbilt University.

   For farmers, broadband could help them monitor livestock welfare and the 
condition of their crops more accurately, thus boosting their efficiency with 
improved rural broadband. Artificial intelligence will be another tool that 
rural residents will use more in the future.

   "The internet can help solve day-to-day tasks for rural residents," 
Bloomfield said. "I'm excited to see it.

   **

   To read more stories from DTN/Progressive Farmer's "Rural Resilience" 
series, visit the Spotlight on Rural Resilience homepage here: 
https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/farm-life/article/2026/05/08/dtns-
special-coverage-challenges.

   Russ Quinn can be reached at russ.quinn@dtn.com

   Follow him on social platform X @RussQuinnDTN




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