Rural Wisconsin Residents Still Face Broadband Gaps Despite Fiber Expansion

Wisconsin has expanded broadband infrastructure significantly, but thousands of rural residents remain without reliable high-speed internet, sometimes even when fiber lines run near their homes, according to Wisconsin Public Radio.

Mike Hesse’s family farm in northeast La Crosse County has fiber about 60 feet from his house, but the line serves a nearby cell phone tower and is unavailable for residential service. Hesse relies on bonded copper lines providing less than 25 megabits per second.

Wisconsin’s Rural Broadband Task Force estimates 92.8 percent of locations have access to service offering at least 100 Mbps downloads and 20 Mbps uploads. About 4 percent, or roughly 165,000 locations, lack what the report defines as basic internet service. Separately, state data show about 84,000 of Wisconsin’s 2.8 million housing units cannot receive 100 Mbps service...

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rural Wisconsinites still face ‘last mile’ problem