Disconnected: Getting the Internet into the hinterlands of Pennsylvania

Talk to officials in Washington, D.C., and in Harrisburg, and they'll say that a home without high-speed Internet access soon will be like one equipped with a rotary phone.

Billions of government dollars have been allocated to spread the benefits of Internet connectivity -- better jobs, better education -- with Pennsylvania securing hundreds of millions of dollars for broadband expansion in "underserved" communities where the Internet hasn't booted up.

By government standards, an "underserved" community doesn't have access to connections with download speeds of at least 6 megabits per second -- or fast enough to download a song in a few seconds or a movie in a few hours.

People in Pennsylvania are using various programs -- the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, the Broadband Initiative Program, Enhancing the Backbone for Multi-Service Delivery, the Bona Fide Retail Request program -- to connect, or at least are trying to.

Their stories address this 21st-century form of disenfranchisement: the county racing to catch up technologically with arriving natural gas drillers; the businessman in the middle of the state who couldn't get four signatures needed for Internet access.

In the second part of this series, there's the young man in Philadelphia typing his way into the middle class and the computer scientist who's pledged to get him there. Together, they represent a shift in how we define the Web as a resource, all at a time when the Web keeps defining us.

The scenes don't fit an easy narrative.

You can live in one part of the state to escape the Web.

You can travel to another part of the state where the Web is the only chance at escape.