Microsoft recently unveiled its plan to close the rural-urban broadband gap with “Airband,” a technology that delivers broadband through empty radiofrequency. Airband will bring internet service to rural communities in six different states, a move widely seen as the first major investment in TV white space broadband.

Recently, the economic disparity of the urban-rural divide has garnered substantial attention, especially as it relates to Internet and technological expansion. Rural economies suffer from a lack of Internet connectivity relative to urban areas, with rural adults being 10 percent less likely to have broadband or smartphones than urban adults.

As technology continues to digitize our daily lives, the urban-rural divide in Internet usage reaps public attention. Despite a decade of improvements between 2007 and 2017, including the near doubling of rural broadband usage from 35% to 63%, rural Americans are still 10% less likely than average to use the Internet. Much of this is attributable to low population density, which makes rural towns less appealing to Internet service providers (ISPs) than customer-packed urban centers. Broadband cable installation over the bare Midwestern and mountainous western expanses is expensive and inefficient. The cable infrastructure for some rural areas is simply too costly.