Rural Areas Left in Slow Lane of High-Speed Data Highway

Verizon is looking to sell the 1.6 million local phone lines it controls in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Residents are practically begging for broadband of some kind. "Alternative broadband providers who could fill that gap face problems, too. Jake Marsh, who runs Island Pond Wireless, a company that beams high-speed Internet signals over strings of antennas, has signed up 250 customers and has a waiting list just as long. But to expand, he is counting on towns getting state funds to help defray the installation costs. Yet officials in Norton, 15 miles west of Canaan, could not download the 20-page grant application because their dial-up line was so slow."