The Highlands & Islands is not the only remote region waiting anxiously for broadband to deliver. The experiences of the Nordic states, especially Finland, has often been quoted as a case study of interest. But what about the experiences across the pond, the rural yet to be connected regions of what is the world’s most IT competitive country?

Verlyn Klinkenborg is a New York Times editor who lives three hours north of New York City, and one of the frustrated Americans who have seen high speed broadband run everywhere except to where they live. It can be a maddening experience, but it gave Klinkenborg the chance to report from the dial-up desolation. 

‘These days, when the Internet teems with complex Web sites and oversized files for downloading, broadband is no longer a luxury: it's a necessity. The need to get high-speed access to rural areas is analogous to the rural electrification project that began to transform America in the late 1930's. One of the most critical issues facing this country is the increasing economic and cultural isolation of rural communities — the abandonment and the ultimate re-democratization of the landscape. No business would settle in a town that lacked electricity, and we are now at the point where no business will settle in a town that lacks broadband access.

It's unlikely that established telecommunications giants will be the ones to bring broadband to the open country. It is going to take the initiative and inventiveness of local communities, partnering with government and small tech companies, to get the job done. My hope is that the wait will be worth it, as it often is with technology. Latecomers have a way of leapfrogging over early adopters. Rural America could end up with higher connection speeds than most urban and suburban residential customers now enjoy.

Broadband access is no panacea for isolation, not in rural counties where the bus routes have been abandoned and the hospitals have fled, and the towns have shrunk below a sustainable core of residents. But broadband offers a vital two-way pipeline to the outer world. It can provide a beginning for the technological foundation needed to resettle rural America, which desperately needs resettling. Talk to those farmers who were there when the lights first went on in the house and the barn back in the 1930's, and you'll have some idea of just what rural broadband might mean.’

Fortunately, established telecommunications company in Europe have a better track record responding to the needs of community. But anyway, it's comforting to know that there are people all over the world who understands exactly how we feel.