There is no doubt the topic of infrastructure is on the minds of many Americans. Seventy-four percent of respondents to a June 2021 Pew Research poll identified infrastructure in the U.S. as a “big problem.”

But infrastructure is much more than the highway paving projects and municipal utility overhauls we usually think about. In fact, the most critical infrastructure for successful communities today and in the 21^st century is access to broadband internet delivered by high-capacity fiber-optic lines.