Broadband in Rural America Slowly Growing

The Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that the gap between urban and rural broadband access in the U.S. is still substantial, but it is narrowing.

A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds what 24 percent of adult rural Americans used a high-speed connection to access the Internet at the end of 2005, compared to 39 percent of home Internet users in urban and suburban areas of the United States.

That’s still a significant gap, but consider in 2003 just nine percent of rural Americans had broadband Internet access, compared 22 percent of urban and suburban Americans

Overall, rural America’s Internet access still lags behind the rest of the country, but the gap is beginning to close. IN 2005, some 62 percent of rural home users could access the Internet (by any means