Broadband in the shadows

In reading Eric Mack's article regarding rural broadband, it got me thinking. I looked up a map for Austin, Texas, and for the most part, subscription is pretty good in the 80-100% range. (http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/broadband-adoption/htmlmulti/broadband-adoption-map/). But stray just a bit outside, and this drops to 20-40%. Mind you, this is just subscription, not availability.

Out in the sticks, both cable and DSL are available for a price. DSL is stuck in the 1.5MBps range, while cable is higher. However, the subscription rate to broadband appears to be 20-40%.

Connected Texas published a report which shows that shows that Texas is going mobile.

However, while there is mobile broadband likely available in the areas where fixed broadband is at 20-40%, the speeds is not even 3G, so, mobile broadband is not really an option/choice in place of fixed broadband. It is very likely that folks that do not subscribe to fixed broadband actually have a mobile phone and a mobile phone that is capable of mobile broadband. BUT there is no 3G/4G from the cell towers.

If Texas is to claim a high percentage of mobile broadband availability/usage, the mobile providers should make this a reality with at least 3G service.