I would venture to guess that the majority of my readers have broadband access, either at the office, or at home, or both. If you are someone that has to use both, you know what the differences are--for those that have broadband at the office and at home, it is easy to forget how slow dialup really is.
When I travel, I often have to use dialup from a hotel, which usually means slow dialup--28k is not unusual. It is sobering to remind ourselves that a majority of U.S. Internet users are still on dialup (about 70%), as opposed to places like Singapore and South Korea, where virtually every home and business has broadband, often over fiber.
The advantage these other countries have is much higher population densities; broadband service providers can more easily make a business case for universal broadband service. Here in the U.S., the wide open spaces and the great quality of life it affords many of us also puts rural communities at a disadvantage when it comes to services.
This is an old story, dating back to the early part of the 20th century, when electricity, then telephone service became an issue exactly the way Internet access is now. Community-based solutions like coops were the answer then, and commmunity-based solutions are, I think, still better than waiting for a commercial company to be able to make a business case. And yes, one community-based solution is to help make the business case for commercial providers by supporting community network projects. A focus on rich local content and services (not dependent on broadband, but easily supplied over dialup lines) helps create a marketplace of buyers for Internet services.
Those buyers will attract private sector sellers of services, and we get the broadband we need to compete in the global Knowledge Economy.