Poor and elderly make rural broadband use lag; promotion needed?

High-speed Internet service, or broadband, has become more available in rural America in the last decade, but just because it's available doesn't mean people will use it. A typical rural household is much more likely to be using broadband today than it was than 10 years ago, when 23 percent of metropolitan-area residents had it and only 10 percent of rural residents did; recent figures (70 percent vs. 57 percent) show that the ratio has greatly improved, but a rural-urban gap of 13 percentage points remains. Research suggests that is because rural areas have more poor people who can't afford the service, and more elderly people who are not interested in getting connected to the Internet, even if it is available.

"The metro/non-metro gap has actually increased over time for households with characteristics that have historically been associated with low levels of broadband adoption (low income, low education and elderly)," researchers Brian Whitacre, Roberto Gallardo and Sharon Strover write for the Daily Yonder. These charts show the differences by income and education in the rural-urban gaps of 2003 and 2010:

They also point to the increased gap in older people: "A similar story can be told about another important predictor of Internet adoption – the age of the head of household. . . . Older heads of households (ages 60 and older) in metropolitan areas increased their broadband-adoption rates between 2003 and 2010 at a faster rate than their non-metropolitan counterparts. This means that another group of historically slow broadband adopters – the elderly – are seeing the metro/nonmetro broadband gap increase rather than decrease." (Read more)

"Effective use of broadband Internet certainly has the potential to increase economic mobility for some historically disadvantaged groups – but only if these households are introduced to the possibilities the technology presents," the researchers write. "In rural areas, in particular, broadband holds a world of opportunities for income generation (examples here and here) and improving education (examples here and here). . . . Historically disadvantaged groups in rural areas seem to be falling further behind in broadband adoption, which can make the situation even worse. So, while most government policies dealing with broadband have traditionally focused exclusively on providing infrastructure (such as grants or loans to telecommunication companies), there is a case to be made for attempting to increase demand." They note that about 3.5 percent of the $7.2 billion in economic-stimulus funds invested in broadband were used for "encouraging sustainable adoption. Programs that help educate rural citizens about the opportunities that broadband presents are a useful complement to investments in the infrastructure itself – and likely deserve a bigger chunk of the pie."

Whitacre is an agricultural economics prodessor at Oklahoma State University. Gallardo is an extension professor at Mississippi State University, where he manages the statewide broadband adoption initiative. Strover is a Regents Professor in Communication at the University of Texas, where she runs the Telecommunications and Information Policy Institute.