![\"Tech](\"https:\/\/www.clarksvilleonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Tech-Center.jpg\" "\\"Tech")
The COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic laid bare just how sorry broadband access is in America: 42.8 million Americans\u2014more than 1 in 8, most in rural areas\u2014have no broad\u00adband Internet service where they live. And of those who do have broadband, 25% have only one choice.<\/p>\n
Throughout Tennessee, there are over 500k people with only one choice for home broadband, and even worse, nearly 300k people are without any access at all. That lack of choice and com\u00adpetition leads to high prices, poor service, and some of the unhappiest customers in America. Only cable TV customers are less happy than ISP customers.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/5G.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/a>The digital divide has serious implications for education, telemedicine, agriculture and small business in Tennessee, but it can be bridged.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
The roots of this problem lie in the vastness of America. Running a fiber connection to every home is so expen\u00adsive that the economics of wired Internet has never made sense in rural America. So for decades, small towns and rural areas have been left behind.<\/p>\n
The problem is so bad that the recently-passed Joe Biden Administration\u2019s infrastructure bill includes $65 billion to help close the digital divide, an investment 78% of Americans support, according to a New York Times\/Survey Monkey study.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s also hope on the horizon in the form of new 5G technology. 5G, or 5th generation wireless networks, have massive capacity, far more than 4G or LTE networks, meaning, they have the ability to deliver fixed wireless Internet to the home.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, wireless networks were made for this challenge. The reason wired networks falter in rural areas is the reason wireless shines. Once wireless networks are built, wireless companies have every incentive to monetize the network\u2019s capacity. Less population means less congestion and more capacity dedicated to ISP services.<\/p>\n
Fixed wireless works a lot like wired Internet. But with no wires to connect, the setup is even simpler. Just plug in a dedi\u00adcated router and place it somewhere with a good signal, and you\u2019re off and running.<\/p>\n
5G couldn\u2019t come at a better time. The pandemic has pushed more of the economy online, creating huge challenges for rural communities without reliable Internet and huge opportunities for those with it.<\/p>\n
With employers making more jobs \u201cwork from anywhere,\u201d more people can relocate to those small communities and people in those communities can tap into more job opportunities, giving employers better access to talented people all across the country. But it\u2019s all dependent on access to reliable high-speed Internet.<\/p>\n
Bridging the digital divide is not only good for the communities trapped on the wrong side of it. It\u2019s good for the country as a whole. And 5G offers us a real shot at meaningfully bridging America\u2019s digital divide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic laid bare just how sorry broadband access is in America: 42.8 million Americans\u2014more than 1 in 8, most in rural areas\u2014have no broad\u00adband Internet service where they live. And of those who do have broadband, 25% have only one choice. Throughout Tennessee, there are over 500k people with only one choice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[7545,13329,555,10444,12675,12712,71,4473,2086,12734,3294,888,261,2563],"class_list":["post-17924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","tag-4g-lte","tag-5g-wireless","tag-att","tag-broadband","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-economy","tag-infrastructure","tag-internet","tag-pandemic","tag-t-mobile","tag-technology","tag-tennessee","tag-verizon-wireless"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17926,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17924\/revisions\/17926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}