Originally Posted by gfunkdave

Sure it can. It just chooses not to since it doesn't make money building out wireline infrastructure in sparsely populated areas. Verizon and Google have put their fiber to the premise plans (Fios and Google Fiber) on hold indefinitely once they realized how expensive it was. Ultimately, to really bridge the digital divide and make sure that anyone can get decent broadband, the only real answer will be massive government funding. This is also how they brought power to rural America in the 1920s-40s. New York State had one of the best programs, where the state allocated $500 million in competitive reverse auction funding to ISPs interested in building out their networks, with a preference for fiber and a minimum speed requirement in most areas of 100/100 Mbps. Exceedingly remote areas were allowed to get away with 25/3 (the FCC's current broadband definition).