Ton's comment below mentions his brother's involvement in rural broadband. After a short search I came up with this link above.
I really believe strongly in this kind of effort. Especially interesting (as Ton points out) is the fact that a community has to be interested in order to progress, for obvious financial reasons. However it did bring to mind that despite being less numerous, rural communities tend to be more tightly integrated.
It reminded me of a recent survey which suggested that 'way out' interests (not my description or their's but I'm paraphrasing) also were more tightly integrated (damn can't find the link).
I'm sure there is a lesson here to learn about the establishment of online communities