Promoting Fair Local Organizing for Broadband Delivery: Suggestions for Community-Level Action in Persistently Underserved Communities

Are public-private partnerships superior to private-only or public-only broadband initiatives in meeting the needs of the most rural and least served areas? Yes, say the authors, based on data collected from a USDA-funded six-case mixed-methods study that compared examples of the three types of successful rural broadband initiatives. This finding, they say, applies both to residential and business users. Based on these data, they offer six targeted strategies to address access, public education, and local organizational capacity to support technology independence in persistently lagging areas.