I feel like it's more likely impacted by simple time: rural areas tend to see changes at a much slower rate, and I believe a (very) large chunk of the infra cos

I feel like it's more likely impacted by simple time: rural areas tend to see changes at a much slower rate, and I believe a (very) large chunk of the infra cost is just digging into the ground, and by the time it's being done for a rural area, it turns out fiber has become fairly cheap to produce... So when the upgrades do finally roll around, it's not incremental -- it leapfrogs 2 decades or whatever of technology upgrades. A single upgrade places you far ahead of your peers, creating the dynamic you describe (and yet, your peers aren't actually that far behind, if they wanted to catch up) The same thing occurs with third-world countries getting first-world tech; they get it sporadically, and so see large jumps of change instead of slow, incremental shifts; this also gives a bit of an advantage, as they don't have stale infrastructure from the incremental change, and so can make much more extensive use of the new tech. For example, China skipped credit cards and went directly to mobile payments -- and with only cash to compete, mobile took over entirely. And so when these rural counties finally see an upgrade.. they see rapid full fiber coverage. There's simply no competing technology in the area, since its so far behind, and fiber keeps the county prepped for the next 20 years of no upgrades..