Why Do Older, White, Rural Residents Have Slower Broadband Speeds?

Editor’s Note: Over the past 15 years, Roberto Gallardo has authored or co-authored more than 70 articles for the Daily Yonder. His primary concentration has been on rural broadband. In this submission, Gallardo looks at a finding from his last Daily Yonder article: that rural whites tend to have slower broadband access than people of color. It’s a counterintuitive fact, given that people of color generally tend to have less access – not more – to basic services.

Our previous analysis looked at average download and upload speeds for all Census tracts in...