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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Rural Oregon Waits a Bit Longer for Broadband

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Monday, September 21, 2015   

PORTLAND, Ore. - Just over 50,000 homes and businesses in Oregon are on the list to get a broadband Internet connection - some for the first time.

The Federal Communications Commission's Connect America Fund started three years ago, for broadband service expansions that could take up to six years to complete.

According to FCC spokesman Mark Wigfield, the goal is to get higher-speed Internet service to sparsely-populated areas, by adding some financial incentive for providers to install or upgrade the technology.

"Rural areas tend to be more expensive to serve because there's fewer people, the terrain may be challenging," explains Wigfield. "So, the costs tend to be high and some of them may have some service, but it may be very slow that just doesn't meet modern needs; and others just may not have it at all."

In Oregon, the carriers working on the expansion are CenturyLink and Frontier Communications. Between the two companies, they're eligible to receive almost $22 million in Connect America funding, but they have to meet installation deadlines in order to access the money.

It's more than a matter of convenience for small-town residents to have good online access. It also makes a difference for economic development, whether businesses will start or stay in an area.

Wigfield says the FCC is well aware of the rural disadvantages.

"Nearly half of rural America lacks access to modern broadband at this point and so, this program is an effort to try to close that urban/rural digital divide, to a technology that has just become pretty essential to daily life," says Wigfield.

Some cities and counties, tired of waiting, have expressed interest in setting up their own fiberoptic networks but Wigfield says so far, that idea has been held up by groups lobbying on behalf of the large communications providers.



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