Tech's Cutting Edge? Try a Tiny Town

TECH'S CUTTING EDGE? TRY A TINY TOWN
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Bobby White bobby.white@wsj.com]
In the Internet age, big cities such as New York and Dallas are often seen as the earliest adopters of the latest technology. But the rapid pace of Internet technology has created some ironies where rural centers have moved more quickly than urban areas to embrace new tech services. Residents of tiny towns such as Sallon, Nev., Greybull, Wyo., and Kingfisher, Okla., can now all boast that they get IPTV, while city dwellers in Portland and San Francisco won't get the service for at least another 12 months. The rural areas have surpassed the cities largely because of nimbler local telecom companies that have taken matters into their own hands. While behemoths such as AT&T and Verizon are hamstrung by the daunting red tape and logistics of rollouts to millions of consumers, many smaller companies have charged ahead by exploiting some weapons only available to firms of their size. For one, the rural telecoms can receive aid from the Rural Utilities Service, a division of the Agriculture Department. To prevent rural phone companies from falling behind, the division loans small telecoms enough money to pay for 80% of a network upgrade. Since 2002, when this broadband program was enacted, 57 loans totaling more than $800 million have been dished out, says an agency spokesman.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115396323507218646.html?mod=todays_us_ma...
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