Town of Newport Supervisor Christopher Davis said before Frontier came to the town, he would have to physically monitor the cattle on his dairy farm, even in the middle of the night to watch for activity. Now his operation uses Wi-Fi to monitor the cattle through phones, tablets and computers.

“It gives us a piece of mind because we can be away from the dairy and still monitor what’s going on,” Davis said.

However, Davis said out of 315 homes he estimates 25 percent of people on the eastern border of the town are in what he called “a dead zone.”

A 2016 report from the Federal Communication Commission found the total of 23 million people around the nation living in rural areas lack access to broadband at the current federal minimum standards, defined as 25Mbps download/3Mbps upload.

Providing access isn’t as simple as setting up a tower. Companies have to ponder the questions and costs to bring broadband to areas in need. The state has started providing funds to help with the costs of broadband access. Read the full story here.