Estimates are about 25% of the population may live in such areas.
This seems like a misleading metric that makes it sound like a huge proportion of the population is being underserved. How many of those living in rural areas actively don't want to have broadband access? Some people live in remote areas because they want to get away from all the urban technological trappings.
If there's a poverty issue, then simply providing broadband access isn't necessarily going to be a magic bullet for alleviating poverty. Rural broadband deployments should be planned in a way that optimizes resources.
Well, it seems like the potential usage of rural broadband should be taken into account before governments start mandating infrastructure projects.. Wasting resources on an "internet highway to nowhere" doesn't sound like a great idea. Sure, rural inhabitants have some right to internet access, but some rural areas should probably be prioritized over others based on how many people would actually use the broadband access. Google's Kansas City broadband project didn't just set itself up willy-nilly, they plan to put broadband where it's most needed. So perhaps employment shouldn't be the only metric, but there should be some logical way to distribute infrastructure that opitmizes for usage.
I don't think it is a matter of how many employees are living in the rural areas. This is about the entire populace living in the rural areas. When it comes to the issue of broadband, you don't necesarily have to be employ in order mised its non-existence. We are living in an information age and people living everywhere have the right to access internet be it employed or not.
Estimates are about 25% of the population may live in such areas. There has been a lot of poltical pressure to find answers to the problem although the progress has not been as noteworthy as many hoped.
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