The Digital Divide down south

"Five Days on the Digital Dirt Road" is a video exploration of the digital divide in rural North Carolina, featured on InternetforEveryone's site. The link between Internet access and economic growth/vitality is evident from these interviews, and yet some of these folks couldn't even afford to pay for high speed Internet if it was available.

Not only is it striking to me that people living near my former home of Durham can't get high speed Internet access (or any access at all), but that my own parents were in the same situation just a year ago. The only provider in their rural Virginia county supplied dial up service that was inconsistent at best. About a year ago, a massive cell tower was built in their mountain valley (an eyesore but at last I could get a cell signal when I visited) and my mother bought herself an air card, which uses a cell phone signal to provide access. Prior to that development, I had to drive the ten miles to town to do any work that required a high speed connection--not a big deal when you're on vacation. But it's not a viable scenario long term.

So if such a lack of Internet access exists in wealthy America, how significant is this lack in countries like China and Brazil, nations that have bustling urban metropolises and vast rural regions? And what does this lack of access look like for people in poor urban areas, where high-speed Internet might be available but not an economic possibility. Who will pay to bridge the digital divide? Is it a government's responsibility?