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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-11/microsoft-pushes-fast-internet-for-u-s-heartland-to-bridge-broadband-gap

Right now, 23.4 million Americans in rural areas can't get the fast internet access increasingly needed for tasks like homework, job applications, online medical treatment and remote repairs for farming equipment. Over the years, Microsoft developed and tested its broadband software, along with new chips, devices and antennae, in places including Kenya and Colombia. While it has had some U.S. projects, Microsoft largely overlooked its home country in efforts to bridge the digital divide. That message was underscored in last year's presidential election, when rural voters expressed dissatisfaction and anger over being left out of economic and technological growth, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said.

"It's fair to say the election raised our level of consciousness, as it did for a great many people in the country," Smith said in an interview. "It certainly caused us to reflect on the fact that we had been pursuing these projects to a greater degree in rural Africa than rural America. We'd been involved in Asia and other continents more so than in our own country."

Microsoft's own investments will provide access to less than 10 percent of the rural population currently without broadband, so the software maker is asking other companies and the government to get involved. Microsoft will share the technology as well as related patents for free with partners and rivals.

This is by far the most important infrastructure upgrade this country needs and the longest overdue. Broadband internet is one of the major amenities that keep millennials in urban areas and moving away from rural areas, while many areas in the midwest struggle to find workers.