[kalleboo]

It's interesting that it's so expensive to get electric service these days.

I wonder how things actually looked in the heyday of the rural electrification board.

My parents live in rural Australia (similarly 40 miles to the nearest supermarket) so I have some idea but obviously it's very different geography and a different a situation - they have electric and a rotten phone line (certainly can't reach 56K), but get their internet through a rooftop antenna connecting to 3G.

[rayiner]

Probably similar: https://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2017/02/power-farmer-minne.... The article quotes $600 per mile in 1939. That's $10,500 per mile adjusted for inflation, but the inflation metric isn't a good one here. Inflation is calculated using consumer prices. The inputs for electric (or telecom) infrastructure are mainly labor and materials, which are relatively more expensive than they were back in 1940. For example, if you scale $600 by the change in minimum wage over that time, you get $20,500, about what's quoted.

[xenadu02]

It is my understanding that the REA charged a flat fee per home and ate the cost to the extent it exceeded the fee. They also setup generating stations and gave loans to power companies (and later rural telephone companies).

A lot of that assistance isn't available anymore.