Newhouse: More Needs To Be Done Connecting Rural America

It’s a push the FCC and USDA have promoted for years, connecting rural America up to broadband service, allowing producers and others in small towns or wide open locations to compete on the international market.  However, a study released last week by Broadband Now Research shows the number of Americans without broadband is moving in the wrong direction.  The study shows 43 million Americans don’t broadband access, which is double the figure released by the FCC and USDA.

Central Washington’s Dan Newhouse said for him, it’s incredibly frustrating that politicians and bureaucrats talk about expanding technologies allowing rural America into the 21^st century, but so little is done.

“We are so slow, at making that a reality.  In today’s economy, in the world we live in, in order to be successful and competitive, you got to be connected, and we got to make this happen.  And the recognition that the situation is worse than we thought, makes it even more urgent that we take action.”

Newhouse says D.C. need do more to provide rural American, all Americans, the tools needed to be successful.

“No matter where you live, in an urban area or a rural area, that you have the same opportunities as it relates to being engaged in our economy, and having the same opportunities that every other American has.”

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