While a fight unfolds to save net neutrality, rural America struggles to get online

You might’ve heard that the internet is going to get more expensive.For most of us, that’s really big news. But the bigger issue in rural areas, and especially on farms, is getting high-speed access in the first place. Paying high prices for internet connectivity to any site, at all, is something that residents of rural areas have been dealing with for years.Sure, there’s a digital divide. Ninety-six percent of urbanites have access to high-speed broadband internet access, compared to only 39 percent of rural Americans, according to the FCC. (The Census Bureau defines rural areas as county land outside cities or towns, even those as small as 2,500 people.) Early in his tenure, President Obama signed billions of dollars into law to address that very issue. But when it comes to how farmers are using the internet, it’s not altogether different from the city-dwellers.