Borrowing a page from history, the Legislature has approved a bill that will take a significant step toward rural economic development at little cost to consumers or taxpayers.

In the 1930s, many private companies were reluctant to extend electricity networks into rural areas because the high cost of developing the needed infrastructure vastly exceeded the amount of likely revenue to be derived from relatively few customers.

With some help from federal and state governments, the rural regions did the job themselves, forming cooperatives under which consumers themselves owned the power networks and elected boards of directors to oversee their operations.

Now, access to high-speed broadband internet service is analogous to the situation in the 1930s. Just as access to power was fundamental to economic development then, especially because of the Great Depression, access to broadband internet now is fundamental to economic development. The COVID-19 pandemic, which forced schools and innumerable businesses to operate online, has placed an exclamation point on the need for universal broadband access.

The need is so obvious that it has eclipsed the political polarization that so often characterizes business at the state Capitol. Recently, both houses of the General Assembly voted unanimously for a bill that will accelerate rural broadband deployment.

It allows electric cooperatives to place fiber optic lines on existing utility poles without having to renegotiate easements with each landowner, instantly and inexpensively providing the basic infrastructure to extend broadband networks.

Now it’s up to county governments to work with broadband providers to make use of that low-cost infrastructure to provide the service and provide equal economic opportunities to rural areas that have been shut out of the opportunities broadband provides in more densely populated areas. According to the Federal Communications Commission, more than 800,000 Pennsylvanians, at least 6% of the population, do not have broadband access. And that number likely is low because the FCC relies on internet service providers, who are under federal regulatory mandates for broadband access and speeds, to provide the data.

Equal access to broadband is equal opportunity in the digital age. Pennsylvania is one of the nation’s most rural states. The Legislature should do all that it can to provide that opportunity.

— The Citizens’ Voice, Wilkes-Barre