Mobile Broadband in rural areas - the minimum good experience

A lesson to learn from the USA for any country potentially utilizing operators to provide quality broadband to rural areas:

"For almost 20 years, AT&T, Verizon and the other big players have collected hundreds of billions of dollars through rate increases and surcharges to finance that ambitious plan, but after wiring the high-density big cities, they now say it's too expensive to connect the rest of the country. But they'd like to keep all that money they banked for the project"

From Newsweek

While there is no guarantee this will happen, it's something that should involve someone having direct ownership to ensure the correct level of service is provided. Taking Ireland, and my own experience of using mobile broadband in a rural village (only 25 miles outside of Dublin I might add) which was the only means of getting broadband - the service was abysmal on 3G. A simple rule of thumb for me to measure 'acceptable broadband'? It can handle a Skype-style phone call, and no clicking on webpage links where nothing happens as the signal has dropped (both of which I experienced). Ultra high speed is not essential, only an excellent quality of service and 'feel' of speed.

After installing the latest version of iOS7.1 on my older iPhone 4S and being aware of the 3 year old hardware, it still 'feels' fast with minor delay. Broadband should provide a similar experience.