Rural telcos moving forward with broadband

New data shows that rural telcos have rapidly brought their networks into the broadband age with 92% of rural carriers and cooperatives offering some form of broadband service.

In an annual survey of its members, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association found that in four years the percentage of rural telcos offering broadband to some part of their customer base has jumped from 58% to 92%. DSL was by far the technology of choice with 92% of respondents deploying broadband in some form over their copper plants. Another 22% used unlicensed wireless—in addition to DSL and other technologies—to reach their customers. A small percentage of those carriers also used cable modem, fiber-to-the-home, and licensed spectrum.

The average survey respondent served 5606 residential customers and 1564 business lines. Of those customers, 21% subscribed to 56 kb/s dial-up service, while 10% subscribed to a broadband service ranging from 200 kb/s to 3 Mb/s. On average, the providers charged $38.12 per month for a cable modem service, $44.53 per month for DSL and $46.34 for a wireless broadband service.

Rural carriers haven’t been deploying these services in a vacuum either. Competition has hit the independents carriers as well as the RBOCs. The survey found that 76% of respondents faced competition for broadband and enhanced services from at least one other carrier. Last year, only 66% of respondents said they faced such competition.

As for next generation technology, many of the rural telcos are thinking far ahead of their Bell counterparts. 51% of the carriers surveyed said they plan to offer fiber-to-the-node to at least 80% of their customers by the end of the year. Only 4% said they paned to bring fiber all the way to the premise though.