[Seriously, what makes high speed internet so special that rural areas should not have it?]

I can see both sides of the "argument".

On one side, the internet is becoming a basic requirement for everyday life in this day and age (not yet though; there are still many people who do perfectly fine without it). I predict that it will eventually be considered as necessary as electricity itself. Depriving people in rural areas of that can be seen as somewhat inhumane and unfair.

On the other side, it seems kind of selfish to expect a company/government/whatever to spend billions of dollars to deploy infrastructure into areas where they will have one customer every 10 miles. This would eventually lead to increased costs for everyone, including those who have made the "sacrifice" of living in more densely populated areas.

One of the benefits of living in rural areas is that you're away from people. One of the downsides of living in rural areas is that you're away from people.

NOTE: I'm mainly thinking in the context of the USA's midwest, where you can have areas where there is one house every XX miles.

When it comes down to it, I am more of a supporter of the former side of the argument. Maybe not to the extent of forcing a company/government to cover the entire country in high speed internet, but something more along the lines of "all areas with a reasonable population density". This is how things work with waste water sewage where I live. If you live in the middle of no where, you don't have access to running water and sewage; you need a well and a septic tank. But if the area has X amount of people per Sq mile, then the utility is forced to install it.

My reasoning is mainly because the exclusion of non-profitable areas in terms of internet coverage extends well beyond rural areas.

There are even areas within densely populated cities that don't have access to real high speed internet (mainly low income areas). That's not right to me.

I was not arguing against rural internet; the cost is constant over time. But the rural internet requires lobbying and money to invest that requires political lobbying.

To reduce my position to something extremely concise, I'd simply lament that electric cars require a LOT of political lobbying compared to a country with higher average population density.

> Internet is not considered a utility in the same way that power and phone lines are.

I would not mind that the Internet be classified as a utility. Regardless of if it is or not, a co-ordinated effort should be made to bring high speed broadband access to all, including rural areas.

What I do take exception to is claims that bringing high speed Internet access to rural areas does not make sense or should not be done.

> If this is the change you are suggesting, the ongoing debates about net neutrality, as well as rather confusing bandwidth monetization by telecom companies, are big issues in the way of commoditizing the Internet.

Excuse my ignorance, but how does network neutrality stand in the way of commoditizing the Internet?

I'm much more inclined to say that mandating network neutrality, open access, transparent pricing and verifiable metering and billing would go a long way to solve any problems.

> I would not mind that the Internet be classified as a utility. Regardless of if it is or not, a co-ordinated effort should be made to bring high speed broadband access to all, including rural areas.

I mean, legally, they are public utilities. From my limited understanding, the utility companies MUST provide for either everyone in an area or no one, for example, amongst other regulations. This is not true for internet access, not in most places.

> Excuse my ignorance, but how does network neutrality stand in the way of commoditizing the Internet?

If people are able to "pay" for better, faster internet access, how can we regulate it as a public utility for everyone? One might argue that it seems "unfair" (for certain definitions).

This is related to internet billing: Do we bill the downloader? The uploader? How do we measure it? How do we verify the measurement? What if someone MITM injects packets?

We need to make decisions and figure things out in order to get internet to the level of, say, electricity.

> If people are able to "pay" for better, faster internet access, how can we regulate it as a public utility for everyone? One might argue that it seems "unfair" (for certain definitions).

I fail to see how this has anything to do with network neutrality. You pay for your internet connection, I pay for mine. There's nothing unfair about me having a 100M connection and you having a 1G connection.

Network neutrality only bans preferential treatment of service providers, it has nothing to do with who has what kind of connection.

> This is related to internet billing: Do we bill the downloader? The uploader? How do we measure it? How do we verify the measurement? What if someone MITM injects packets?

Internet access billing has fairly established practices. There are no unknowns there. It's either flat rate in retail or 95th percentile in wholesale. Metered billing is an anomaly that can be largely be done away with.

MITM packet injection is not really something you have to worry about. Suffice to say spoofing can be largely prevented.

> We need to make decisions and figure things out in order to get internet to the level of, say, electricity.

There really isn't much to figure out. You can sell Internet access almost the same way you sell electricity.

As regards rural areas (like where my sister lives) not having fast internet, this is why my blog has no graphics, photographs or other doodads: they take too long to download over phone lines.

I've heard stories of people not spending thousands of dollars to extend a power line. I guess in those situations, the utility just has to accept them as a customer. It makes sense to me to put that cost on the property owner, but it also really softens the meaning of must provide service.

> I guess in those situations, the utility just has to accept them as a customer.

Not true. Depending on the location, you can be responsible for tens of thousands of dollars to extend power the last mile. Thats why you see a lot of people going off-grid with solar and a backup generator instead.

I hope the words in front of the quote make it clear I understood that. My phrasing is ambiguous, but my meaning was 'the power company's obligation is limited to providing service once the line has been installed'.

I've heard stories of people not spending thousands of dollars to extend a power line. is also ambiguous, but I meant they chose to go without a hookup instead of spending thousands of dollars (usually at a camp or place they would like to build).