Throw in a light rail transit system running down the highway median. And that's broadband. Like the rush-hour interstate, broadband communications enable more information, in more formats to be delivered more quickly. Consider two basic reasons. If you can digitize it, you can send it.
Digital information is also easier to store and transmit in or on a wide variety of media.
Most telephone traffic between that local switch, and virtually all other switches, is digital. Analog copper wire is great for low bandwidth voice phone calls. But even though copper wire can theoretically transmit up to 6 Megabits per second if you're within two miles of a central office, and up to 1.5 Mbps if you're within three miles, copper wire has problems at those higher bandwidths. Carrying data at those speeds over the local loop's copper wire requires specialized switches, signal repeaters and other equipment to get copper to carry more bandwidth than a telephone call. Anyone who's ever sat at a computer with a low-speed modem waiting for an Internet page to download knows all about the limitations of the analog local loop.