Read the original article by Meagan Flynn in The Washington Post.

Jason Onorati moved to rural Powhatan, Va., 23 years ago, when he didn’t need the Internet to raise a family.

He lives with his young son and his 2-year-old granddaughter on a gravel dead-end road on the edge of town, one of many pockets of rural America that lack reliable WiFi. Here, there is no access to video calls, no Netflix or online billing, except via cellphone. Teleworking, online doctor’s appointments and remote school are nearly impossible.

“I’m three-tenths of a mile from the road, which is why I can’t get Comcast,” Onorati said. “They want to charge by the foot. We’re talking thousands of dollars.”

The coronavirus pandemic has drawn new attention to this long-standing problem, with local and federal lawmakers and candidates in Virginia demanding funding and legal changes to bring broadband to an estimated half-million state residents.AD

In a debate last month, Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) compared the need for nationwide broadband deployment to rural electrification in the 1930s. His Republican opponent, Daniel Gade, compared it to the construction of the country’s interstate highway network in the 1950s…