[Update2]Rural/Urban Broadband Discrimination Growing in US:

Contrary to the Mercury News' statements that, "The use of high-speed Internet services is growing fast in rural America, partly closing the gap between country and city, a survey shows." The rural/urban digital divide is absolutely not closing, in fact, it's growing. I'm not sure what sort of crack-pot statistical summary the Mercury News is relying on, but here's the statistics, you make up your own mind:

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In 2003: 9% of rural Americans had "broadband" Internet access at home compared with 22% of urban & suburban dwellers. The gap was then 13%.

In 2005: 24% of rural Americans had "broadband" Internet access at home compared with 39% of urban & suburban dwellers. The gap was then 15%.

The broadband gap between rural and urban grew by 2% between 2003 and 2005 -- thus, the gap isn't closing, the rural/urban digital divide increased by 2%.

So how does the Mercury News obfuscate this fact? They claim that the rate of increase in broadband penetration was greater in rural areas than in urban areas! Wow, talk about spin... That's like saying that you age faster when you're younger... or maybe that fewer Americans are being killed in Iraq the larger the body count grows. It's bad statistics and the Mercury News should, at the very least, issue a clarification on their story if not an outright retraction of their incredibly misleading headline, "Rural broadband users closing gap."

Looking at the rural/urban broadband divide over multiple years, the increasing gap is even more obvious (from the original Pew Center report):

Over time the urban/rural broadband gap has been:

6% in 2001
11-12% in 2002
12-14% in 2003
12% in 2004
14-16% in 2005

Anyone else see a trend here?

[Update1]

Here's an even more in-depth graph of the divide -- note the steadily growing gap:

[Update2]

Here's the original Pew Press release -- one can see why folks are getting this wrong -- pity the reporters just took straight from the Pew press release instead of actually investigating what is clearly a misleading statement:

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Contact: John Horrigan, 202-419-4500

Rural America trails rest of nation in home broadband use,
but gap has narrowed in past two years

(Washington, February 26, 2006) – Rural Americans are less likely to log on to the internet at home with high-speed internet connections than people living in other parts of the country. By the end of 2005, 24% of adult rural Americans went online at home with high-speed internet connections compared with 39% of adults in urban and suburban areas.

Though the gap remains sizable, growth in rural broadband adoption has been fast relative to urban and suburban areas in the past two years.

“Rural broadband users are no different than home high-speed users elsewhere; they go online more often and do more online activities than dial-up users,” said John B. Horrigan, Associate Director of the Pew Internet Project and principal author of the report. “But with a lower proportion of broadband users in rural America than elsewhere, the result is that rural Americans, in aggregate, have a more distant relationship with the internet than urban and suburban Americans.”

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.

In analysis of specific activities, there are several instances in which rural users are more likely than non-rural users to certain things online. Rural internet users are more likely to take classes for credit online, download screensavers, and download video games.

“For certain things, like taking classes online, the internet is a real ‘distance-killing’ benefit for rural Americans,” said Katherine Murray, research assistant for the project and co-author of the report.

The Pew Internet Project’s report on rural broadband adoption is based on the Project’s combined September-December 2005 surveys of 5,262 Americans, 3,508 of whom were internet users. The Pew Internet Project is a non-profit, non-partisan initiative of the Pew Research Center that produces reports exploring the impact of the internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care, and civic/political life. Support for the non-profit Pew Internet Project is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.