tion, Trends 2015, A Report on Rural Technology, NECA stated that in the United States, NECA carriers cover 37 percent of the territory, but serve only 3.1 percent of the population. 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. According to Iowa Representative Rod Blum, high cost is the major reason that 39 percent of people in rural areas have no access to broadband compared to 4 percent in urban areas. With fewer customers in their territories, telephone providers must spread out the cost of upgrades over fewer customers. This results in lower profits per customer. Blum's remarks were reported in the June 23, 2017, B&C online journal article, "Small Business Committee has Big Interest in Rural Broadband," by John Eggerton. 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 another factor that www.TechnicalPDF.com inhibits many customers from purchasing Internet access in rural areas. Slower speeds that make access to streaming TV videos sluggish and cumbersome are also a factor in lower adoption rates in these areas. Connections to middle-mile networks by rural providers are a mix of microwave and fiber-optic cabling. According to an anonymous staff person at a long-haul network provider, "The lowest- priced way to reach an interconnection point in middle-mile networks is microwave, at $150,000 to $200,000 for the tower and about $40,000 for equipment at the tower." An interconnection point is the equipment cabinet with Gigabit Ethernet or SONET gear, which connects rural providers' networks to middle mile networks, which connect traffic from rural locations to large providers' nationwide, backbone networks. Aerial fiber is less expensive than buried fiber cabling, but more subject to environmental damage such as tornados, snow storms, fallen branches, and