Underserved America: The Broadband Coverage Nobody Wants to Talk About

Part 3 of a 20-Part Bridge Series on HAPS Usage and Deployment in the United States.

1. The Comforting Fiction of “Nationwide Coverage”

Coverage maps look impressive. Marketing materials talk about 97–99% of the population covered. Policy announcements celebrate ambitious targets.

But these figures hide a simple reality: population coverage does not equal service quality, and it definitely does not equal economic inclusion.

• “Served” can mean a single provider offering minimal speeds.

• “Covered” can mean an outdoor signal that collapses indoors or under load.

• “Broadband” can still mean throughput that is barely enough for modern work or education.

The result is underserved America—places that are technically on the map, but practically out of the game.

2. Who Is Really Underserved?

Underserved America is not a narrow demographic. It includes:

• Rural towns on the edge of agricultural and ranching areas

• Tribal communities whose land is large, dispersed and hard to serve

• Mountain and forest communities with difficult terrain

• Coastal and river communities exposed to storms and floods

• “Donut zones” around small cities where fibre stops and fixed wireless thins out

In many of these places, connectivity is both expensive and poor-quality, with limited competition and little redundancy.

3. Why Traditional Models Struggle

The usual options—fibre, fixed wireless, mobile broadband and satellite—each have structural challenges:

• Fibre: high up-front capex, challenging rights of way, long payback.

• Fixed wireless: needs towers, backhaul and line-of-sight; performance degrades with terrain and foliage.

• Mobile broadband: designed for mobility, not guaranteed household capacity; rural ARPUs often don’t support dense builds.

• Satellite: can fill the gap, but may have capacity contention, higher latency, higher cost, and installation hurdles.

Subsidy schemes help, but cost-per-premise in the most remote or sparsely populated areas often remains marginal, even with support.

4. Where HAPS Can Realistically Add Value

HAPS is not a universal answer, but there are concrete underserved scenarios where it makes sense:

4.1 Very low-density households with high social value

Think of:

• Farming communities

• Remote healthcare facilities

• Small schools and colleges

• Public safety and emergency services outposts

A HAPS platform can create a wide-area, low-latency wireless fabric that lifts the baseline quality of connectivity.

4.2 Transitional and seasonal communities

Some regions experience:

• Seasonal worker influxes

• Tourism surges

• Harvest seasons

• Temporary camps or worksites

Building permanent terrestrial infrastructure for these patterns can be uneconomic. HAPS allows seasonal uplift without overbuilding.

4.3 “Dead wedge” zones between fibre PoPs

In some geographies, fibre reaches regional hubs, but the outlying communities are stuck on legacy copper or weak wireless. A HAPS footprint, combined with a small number of gateway sites tied into that fibre, can dramatically expand coverage without building networks to every last mile.

“For underserved America, the challenge is not about gigabit everywhere—it’s about reliable, affordable, usable connectivity somewhere.”

5. HAPS as a Complement, Not a Competitor

To avoid disrupting existing broadband investment plans, HAPS must be positioned carefully:

• As a backstop, not a substitute – focusing on the hardest and most expensive locations.

• As an accelerator – enabling community networks, co-ops and smaller ISPs to aggregate demand under a shared airborne infrastructure.

• As a resilience layer – supporting continuity of service when terrestrial links fail.

This framing matters politically and commercially: the goal is to complete the coverage puzzle, not overturn current market structures.

6. Funding and Policy Alignment

HAPS can fit within existing policy mechanisms, provided regulators and agencies recognise it as a valid access and transport solution:

• Rural broadband funds can include non-terrestrial options under technology-neutral criteria.

• Public–private partnerships can leverage HAPS to reduce cost-per-premise in hard-to-reach communities.

• Tribal authorities and cooperatives can explore HAPS-backed local networks as a route to sovereignty and self-determination in digital infrastructure.

Policymakers need only one shift: focus on outcomes (reliable, affordable service) rather than prescribing the technology stack.

7. Practical Constraints and Guardrails

A sober board-level view must consider:

• Spectrum availability and protection from interference

• Weather and operational constraints

• Long-term business models for platform operators

• Integration with local ISPs and community networks

• Customer premises equipment and affordability

The worst outcome would be to create yet another patchy, unsustainable solution. HAPS must be integrated deliberately—where it is structurally the best option.

8. Board-Level “So What?” for Operators, Investors and Local Leaders

For telcos, infrastructure funds, local co-ops and policymakers:

• There is still real money and social licence on the table in underserved America.

• HAPS offers a way to share infrastructure risk over very large areas.

• Used surgically, it can unlock viable business cases where fibre or towers alone fail.

The real opportunity is to blend terrestrial, satellite and HAPS into a coherent architecture that finally moves “underserved” into “served enough to participate”.

9. Conclusion – From Underserved to Included

The US cannot afford a digital economy that leaves large rural and small-town regions behind. High-altitude platforms will not erase the digital divide on their own, but they provide a new tool for the most stubborn final 5–10% of the coverage problem.

If integrated carefully into funding mechanisms, local partnerships and operator strategies, HAPS can help shift underserved America from a policy talking point to a measurable infrastructure outcome.

If your organisation is exploring how high-altitude platforms, non-terrestrial networks or frontier communications could support your strategy, Bridge Connect US can help.Our advisors work with executives, boards and public-sector leaders across telecoms, digital infrastructure and emerging technologies to clarify the opportunities, the risks and the practical next steps.

To discuss your priorities in confidence - or to understand where HAPS and other NTN solutions may fit within your US connectivity roadmap - contact Bridge Connect US for an initial conversation.

We help you move from uncertainty to strategic clarity.