You Might be Surprised at the Number of Gigabit Connections Small Rural Telcos Supply

Causes, industries, organizations and policies do not get support at any level of government unless there is a “crisis” or “big problem” to address. And, to be sure, rural internet access or communications services of any type are less robust than in cities, for all sorts of good reasons.

But a balanced assessment would also include the contributions thousands of small rural telcos  and internet service providers already make--in rural areas--to supply internet access under most-difficult conditions. We are talking about service providers in areas where there are 10 or fewer residences per square mile, and many operating in areas where there are but two homes per square mile.

The latest survey of 194 small telcos that are members of the NTCA rural broadband association is instructive. The average (“mean”) respondent organization has 4,355 residential voice lines; 1,493 business lines; 4,455 residential broadband connections in service and 530 business internet connections in service.

You might be surprised to learn that 23 percent of all connections made available by these rural service providers offer at least a 1,000-Mbps connection. Another 34 percent of connections offer speeds from 100 Mbps to about 999 Mbps. In other words, 57 percent of available connections operate at 100 Mbps or faster.

As typically is the case, that does not mean most customers buy the fastest services. They do not. Actual buying clusters in the range between 4 Mbps and 100 Mbps minimums.

Source: NTCA data, IP Carrier analysis  

The service area covered by such telcos is approximately 2,244 square miles. Some 60 percent of respondents have service areas 500 square miles or larger and 27 percent were at least 2,000 square miles.