ARC's Information Age Appalachia telecommunications and information technology program was created to promote the development of telecommunications in Appalachia, with a special focus on helping the Region's distressed counties.

While much of the United States has been reaping the economic benefits of the Information Age, rural and small town areas in Appalachia have too often been left behind. For a variety of reasons, these areas substantially lack adequate access to a robust telecommunications infrastructure. This, in turn, exacerbates the Region's geographic isolation and serves as a barrier to the economic, educational, medical, and other benefits that other regions have enjoyed for years.

The focus of Information Age Appalachia is not only on access to infrastructure, but also, and more importantly, on applications that use that access. Instead of simply promoting technology by itself, the program seeks to stimulate economic growth and improve the standard of living in the Region through technology-related avenues.

The four key areas of the program are:

• Access and infrastructure
• Education and training
• E-commerce
• Technology-sector job creation

In November 2001, the Commission approved a policy statement for the Information Age Appalachia program:

The Information Age Appalachia program envisions Appalachia as a prosperous and vibrant region with full access to the tools of the Information Age, and possessing the knowledge and capacity to use those tools to compete successfully in the twenty-first-century economy.

The report Information Age Appalachia: A Rural Digital Divide Program describes the framework within which ARC and its partners will work to bring the benefits of the information revolution to those it threatens to bypass.

Information Age Appalachia: A Rural Digital Divide Program (PDF format)

Program and Impact Summary: Telecommunications and Technology in Appalachia