Using power lines to bring high-speed internet access to rural areas, long discussed, now starting to happen.

"[R]ural areas [...] account for most of the 30 million U.S. homes that don't have broadband access." Note that access to broadband is not the same thing as active broadband service, but it is a necessary precondition; getting people online may take public-sector involvement.

Previously: "Robin Chase says broadband maybe not as essential as water, but as essential as hot water."

Vint Cerf: "What kind of network environment, what kind of information environment, are we providing the general population and the business community in the United States? And the if the answer is, It's a weaker one, a less effective one than other places in the world, is that going to disable us in some way, is it going to retard our ability to be competitive?"

Related: "FDR's rural electrification program, later expanded to include telephone service, was another government effort that helped lay the foundation for an information economy."