More than 23 million people in rural America, including
college students, have no broadband access. Microsoft plans to change that.
The company announced an initiative to connect two
million rural Americans over the next five years by using a cheap technology on
the wireless spectrum known as TV white spaces to transmit broadband data.
Microsoft also asked the Federal Communications Commission to keep the spectrum
available and to collect data on rural broadband coverage to help policymakers
and companies provide Internet access.
The initiative probably won’t produce impressive financial
results, but it is politically savvy.
“[President] Trump on the campaign trail used rhetoric
to speak and resonate with those voters, in these sort of left-behind economies
as we talk about them,” Seth McKee, associate professor of political science at
Texas Tech University, told National Public Radio.
McKee added that building a digital infrastructure should get backing from both
parties.
“They
would be a first mover,” McKee said of Microsoft. “If they were the first ones
to really go in this area and actually show some willingness to put some skin
in the game, that could go a long way in terms of politicians taking notice and
further bankrolling this sort of thing.”