Why the South lags behind when it comes to home broadband use

"Cost is a huge factor in terms of broadband adoption, and in the U.S. we tend to pay more for broadband at entry level speed tiers as well as the higher levels," said Danielle Kehl, a policy analyst at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute. One reason for this, Kehl suggests, is that there isn't enough competition to drive down the cost of broadband subscriptions. As you can see in this chart from the FCC below, more than a third of Americans live in areas served by two or fewer fixed-location Internet providers with download speeds of at least 6 megabits per second -- enough for basic Internet use but not ideal for streaming video.