In the 1920s, the United States was being transformed by a new innovation: electricity. Constant access to power was fundamentally changing the way Americans lived and the economy operated. It was not long before electricity was a complete necessity. However, while most of urban America was on the power grid by the late 1920s, much of rural America remained in the dark. By 1930, only 10 percent of our nation’s farms had electricity.

Nearly 100 years later, rural America is living through another technological divide — the rural broadband gap. In today’s modern economy, the ability to get online is as essential as electricity. And while access to broadband-quality Internet is nearly ubiquitous in urban centers, rural Americans have once again been left in the dark.