With an open, competitive, and coordinated effort, it would cost $13 billion to $19 billion to connect all unserved schools, libraries, health providers, community colleges, and other anchor institutions (outside of Alaska) to fiber. That’s the estimate CTC developed in its study for the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition—part of an effort to develop a concrete strategy for addressing the rural digital divide.

The cost estimate takes into consideration the different infrastructure requirements posed by the county’s various geographies and population densities. It focuses on connecting anchor institutions because, based on our analysis, doing so would bring fiber to within the ZIP code of 95 percent of the U.S. population.

Read the full report here.