The connectivity gap between rural and urban areas has been a persistent issue in the US. Nearly all (99%) of urban households in the US enjoy fixed terrestrial broadband that offers download speeds of 25 Mbps or more. That figure plummets to 82% when it comes to rural areas. This divide has narrowed in recent years, but not fast enough to keep up with our increasing reliance on the internet for things like remote working or accessing government services. This leaves rural households and businesses – which have increased in number since the pandemic - at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to their connectivity needs. As with most problems of this nature, they create a vacuum for potential solutions, with countless service providers swooping in to position their technology as the way to bridge the urban-rural divide.
Fiber optic cabling and satellite technology are the forerunners in this race, but one stands head and shoulders above the other, and if you hadn’t read the title of this article, it may not be your first guess.
Who wins the fiber vs. satellite debate?
At first glance, satellite connectivity seems like the obvious answer to boosting connectivity in remote rural areas. It doesn’t require a chain of base stations or the laying of thousands of kilometers of cabling, the physical impact on the ground is virtually nonexistent, and even a small network of satellites can offer broad, sweeping coverage. However, there is one huge problem that’s easy to overlook with satellite deployments. That problem is cost.
Cost is one of the main reasons the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rejected an application from SpaceX for Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) subsidies. According to the FCC, the satellite solution proposed by SpaceX did not deserve the funding because it couldn’t guarantee reliable speeds and would require hundreds of dollars’ worth of equipment in homes – costs that would inevitably fall to operators or be passed onto end-users themselves. In other words, the subsidy wouldn’t deliver a good return on investment for consumers, and while it might help the odd home or business, it wouldn’t help to close the rural-urban divide on a grand scale.
These subsidies are scarce, so the FCC rejecting SpaceX’s proposal is actually a good thing. It shows that their priorities are in the right place, and that they aren’t swayed by the novelty of new technology that may end up overpromising and under delivering.
Fiber optics - the present and the future of internet
That’s where fiber optical cabling comes into play. Fiber already has an established track record for connecting rural areas to the internet. It currently has 23% of the broadband market, and the highest customer satisfaction rating of all internet-access technologies. Cable is well-liked and has the biggest share of rural areas, but there is one criticism – people want faster speeds. Nearly half of all people that moved into rural areas in the past year chose homes that already offered FTTH (fiber to the home) as standard. This is a clarion call for the government and rural communities to facilitate and even encourage more people to move out into rural areas, lessening the crowding and polluting of urbanized areas. The message is clear – investment in fiber, a tried and trusted method of accessing the internet in rural communities, is where funding should be focused.
The fact that fiber already has 23% of the broadband market also dispels the misconception that it takes too much time and investment to deploy in rural areas. If electricity and water infrastructure have existed in these places for the better part of a century, there’s no reason fiber can’t follow suit. The Rural Electrification Act of 1936 funded utility company projects to build electricity distribution networks to serve remote rural areas. Internet access has become a foundational utility of the home, as essential as gas, electricity, or water in the modern age. So why can’t it be served in the same way?
The persistent connectivity gap between rural and urban areas in the US has created a vacuum for potential solutions, with fiber and satellite technology currently duking it out for supremacy. However, with cost a significant factor, making satellite connectivity an impractical solution, fiber optical cabling has an established track record for connecting rural areas to the internet in an affordable and established way.
