| I analyze the determinants of county-level broadband availability to gauge the extent to which the rural-urban broadband gap has narrowed and the factors that underlie that narrowing. Using data that have been collected by organizations tracking and promoting broadband in Kentucky and North Carolina, I find that in both states the rural-urban availability gap has indeed narrowed substantially, although there appears to be a limit on the extent to which broadband service will extend into the least densely populated counties. Among rural counties, availability rates increase systematically with the size of the county’s urbanized population. |
