## 2 Rural Digital Divide: State of the Art  
The early state of the art of [PERSON] and [PERSON] on the digital divide [11] examined the effects of the two meanings of this concept (gap in access and inequality in ability of use) from three levels of analysis: individual, organizational, and global. The theoretical perspective adopted, the research methodology used, and the key results obtained by the research carried out up to that date were studied in each level. This showed the little research existing in the field of the digital divide from a territorial perspective or focused on the specific problems of the rural world, except for [PERSON] and [PERSON]'s economic feasibility analysis [19] on the cost-effective affordable proposal to combine high gain antennas, dynamically steerable beamforming antennas, and multihop routing to provide high-speed wireless internet access in rural or remote areas. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [11] also suggested twelve research topics to conduct a more in-depth examination of the digital divide and how it affects citizens, managers and economies, which have had broad echoes in later literature; but none of their recommendations were related to the digital divide between urban and rural worlds. However, due to the social interest of the matter, numerous studies on the digital divide in the rural world were undertaken, becoming the subject three years ago of a systematic review of 157 articles published between 1991 and 2014 on digital and rural development in Western countries, mainly focused on the aspects of connectivity and inclusion [20]. Regarding the first aspect, it was evident that public policies aimed at the implementation or improvement of technological infrastructures in the rural world are generally sensitive to the needs of these territories, but their achievements are quickly obsolete by rapid technological development, as they are more reactive than anticipating and not very sensitive to market failure. Obstacles to the adoption and use of technologies arising from the existence of a lower average level of education and computer skills in rural areas than urban ones were proven. Generic policies in this field were concluded to neglect particular local needs, as not all rural communities are the same, so it was proposed that future researches should focus on specific communities, while addressing connectivity and inclusion issues to support more personalized public policies. This idea has been taken up for Australia, indicating that national policies could better reduce digital inequality between the urban and rural world by supporting and empowering local solutions [21]. There is a consensus in the academic literature that poor rural telecommunication infrastructures hinder rural development, increase regional growth gaps, and ultimately affect the competitiveness of national economies [20]. However, it is also true that digital inequality is also a reflection of previous social inequalities [22], as important as youth migration, geographical isolation, and lack of economic resources in the case of rural communities. These phenomena can be decisive, since, even with broadband access to the internet, many rural communities may be unable to exploit the full potential of this technology and remain at a disadvantage compared to cities [23]. It has also been noted that even when broadband reaches a rural community, many residents do not participate in the modern online society due to a lack of capacity or even willingness to adapt to new technologies [24]. Having access to digital connections does not imply that people use them [25]. Due to this, the adoption of digital technologies in the rural world has been considered the result of the interaction of individual factors such as personality, motivations, or innovative capacity, with other contextual factors of sociocultural nature [26].