In The Tek 95 Logan nods to how cheap living "in the woods" is compared to living in a city. But how much cheaper is it really? And what are one's options in regards to internet out in the sticks? Getting decent internet service can be hard enough in urban and suburban areas.
Your power company having fiber. Its freaking sweet!! Which in my case is directly tapped into KC's Google fiber. Plus its a very practical way and reason for rural areas to have such a service. Watching the consumers reaction to such good internet and seeing the local cable company shit a brick has been very entertaining. Cable is cheap here. Cant give it away. LOL
Here in England I live out in the sticks and the internet is very slow. But I'm still able to stream video etc without any problems. Game downloads can take a while, although I usually just start them before I go to bed. Aaah, first world problems.
The largest city I have ever lived in had about 250,000 people. So I can't really speak for cities like NY, Chicago, LA etc. However I have spent the majority of my life living in rural areas.
I once paid $90 (or so) a month for 2mb dsl internet because the local ISP had a weird rule that you had to have a $45 land-line telephone service to be eligible for internet.
I also purchased Hughes net, which is a complete rip-off and had download speeds of less than 1mb.
(Can't believe I'm gonna say this) Luckily, Time Warner came into my area and I now have decent internet speeds.
I would think it's arguable living in the country is cheaper. Any money you save by spending less on rent is spent on property taxes, property maintenance & gas money to commute, house insurance, propane deliveries if you don't have natural gas & more. This is all assuming you own your own property like most people in rural areas do.
Personally, I have NewWave's 50mbps, and that runs me $80 for the net alone. The closest major city to me is a 3 hour drive.