ge of customers who opt for broadband is lower. The National Exchange Carrier Association (NECA) is a nonprofit association of small, rural carriers that was formed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to administer access charges. Access charges are the fees long-distance compa- nies pay to access the networks of local phone companies to complete their long-dis- tance customers' calls. In its publication, Trends 2009, A Report on Rural Technology, NECA stated that in the United States, while broadband-based Internet access is avail- able to 92 percent of these regional areas, only 31 percent of the customers of the 1,100 rural operators opt for it. In its report, NECA further commented that the long distances and low population densities in these areas are the primary causes of the high cost of deploying connections to backbone carriers. The middle-mile costs associated with interconnection to the Internet are passed on to end users in the form of higher Internet access fees. These higher fees are one fac- tor that inhibits many customers from purchasing Internet access in rural areas. Slower speeds that make surfing the Internet sluggish and cumbersome are also a factor in low adoption rates in these areas. According to Paul Savill, vice president of Product Management at Level 3, the lowest-priced way to reach Level 3's interconnection point is microwave at $150,000 to $200,000 for the tower and about $40,000 for equipment at the tower. An intercon- nection point is the equipment cabinet with Ethernet or SONET gear that connects the rural provider's network to networks such as Level 3's nationwide, backbone network. The costs to install microwave are less than the $800,000 to $1 million needed for five-mile buried fiber cable run. Aerial fiber is less expensive than buried cabling, but more subject to environmental damage such as tornados, snow storms, fallen branches, and SO on. Savill believes these investments are too costly for the small rural carriers that NECA reports have an average customer b