The availability of high speed internet access in rural America is the subject of the latest study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Around 24 percent of rural Americans were using high-speed connections to the Internet in their homes by the end of 2005, the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported Sunday. This is an improvement over the 16 percent of rural Americans with broadband connections in 2004, but below the 39 percent of urban and suburban Americans using high-speed connections at home in 2005, said John Horrigan, associate director for research at the Pew Internet Project.

Overall rural internet penetration has risen quickly in recent years, with 62% of adult rural Americans at the end of 2005 with internet access, compared with 70% of adults in urban and suburban locales. This 8 percentage point gap is about half the rural-non-rural gap at the end of 2003. Coupled with fast growth in broadband adoption, the internet profile of rural America is slowly becoming more like the rest of the nation.