The internet is an invisible mesh that enables instantaneous global communications, but delivering all those bits quickly to more people in more places requires increasingly exotic approaches. Here are a few things you may not realize about how communication pipes work around the world:
More than 1 million veterans rely on the Lifeline program connecting low-income households to essential services like health care, job opportunities and public safety. Unfortunately, proposed changes from the Federal Communications Commission threaten to undermine this vital program and hurt those who depend on it most. About 40 million people are eligible for Lifeline and roughly 10 million of those have enrolled. Of the enrollees, around 1.3 million (or more than 10 percent) are veterans or disabled veterans living near or below the poverty line.
Pennsylvania State University researchers rounding the bend on a year-long study of broadband access in rural Pennsylvania are finding that speeds are even slower than previously thought. Bradford County, on the NY border in Northeastern PA, has slow connectivity speeds, but according to the most recent map available from the Penn State study, it's not among the worst.
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