Well, for me, it isn’t about living there full-time, so the best possible connectivity wasn’t the biggest consideration; advertised DSL goes up to 18Mbps or mor

Well, for me, it isn’t about living there full-time, so the best possible connectivity wasn’t the biggest consideration; advertised DSL goes up to 18Mbps or more, and discounting that ideal to, say, 8-10 Mbps would still leave me in okay shape. The other factors were things like: size of property (35+ acres), quality of property (trails, garden space, places for kids to play outside, natural beauty, conservation), the house, and a balanced location between different families as well as airports. I will admit that I was surprised my DSL was _so bad_, considering we weren’t that far from town and not far away from a state highway. I agree with you that spending tax money on fiber won’t be a silver bullet for a rural community in terms of encouraging economic growth from the tech sector. It does help counteract the monopolistic rent-seeking behaviors of local telecom companies, however. I’m semi-optimistic about fixed wireless in the coming years. We’ll see about the Sprint/T-Mobile deal.