Oddly Enough, Rural-Urban Digital Divide is About to Get Worse

In just about any country, of any size, there typically is a gap between the typical speeds a city dweller can buy, compared to what a rural resident can buy, based almost entirely on the fact that rural infrastructure is much more expensive than urban infrastructure, for any number of reasons.

But the rural-urban broadband access "divide," ironically, is going to get worse as fixed-line providers and wireless providers roll out their faster-speed networks. The reason is logical enough: the places those faster cable, telco and wireless 4G and HSPA+ networks are being introduced are largely metro markets.

As Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner, Cox Communications and other cable opertors keep adding areas where it is possible to buy 50 Mbps access as a standard consumer service, and as wireless operators light faster 4G and HSPA+ networks, rural networks will find it virtually impossible to keep up.

So get ready for another round of complaints about the gap between rural and urban broadband networks. In fact, get ready for complaints that matters have gotten worse over the last year. That will be the unavoidable consequence of faster networks being activated in urban areas, both fixed line and wireless.