The Rural/Muni Broadband march continues. Today nation’s 2,000 muni/public electric systems, 134 provide Internet service, 128 provide broadband connections, 76 provide DSL, and 39 offer wireless networking, according to this report.

bq. Adel, 250 miles south of Atlanta, has joined the growing ranks of rural communities that offer some type of broadband Internet service — wireless, cable, DSL or signals over electrical lines — through municipal utility companies. Georgia has at least four wireless towns and there are plans to make Houston County, south of Macon, the state’s first wireless county this year. Rural residents are hungry for high-speed Internet connections, said Carl Peedy, president of Tri-State Broadband, a suburban Atlanta company that has assisted Adel and Georgia’s other wireless communities — Nahunta, Pelham and Ellaville. The company also will assist Dothan, Ala., and is negotiating with communities in Colorado, Pennsylvania and Illinois. “The interest in wireless has boomed over the last couple of years,” he said. “The technology has come together, the prices have come down.”

Source: The Courier Journal