Access to ultra high-speed Internet in rural areas is obviously an issue that’s not going away terribly quick. While it is of course important to get major metros connected with fast fiber Internet, Elliot Noss, CEO of Ting observes, access shouldn’t be seen as only for city centers.

“Smaller cities and towns need faster, more reliable Internet too. Maybe even more so,” Noss pointed out around a recent announcement that Ting was rolling out 1 Gbps service in a neighborhood in Holly Springs, N.C.

Broadband in smaller markets also is an often-referenced challenge in the United Kingdom as well. Hoping to tackle that issue, CityFibre and Gigaclear announced a partnership on Friday to bring ultrafast fiber broadband services to U.K. rural areas.

CityFibre’s national footprint will be used to facilitate and accelerate Gigaclear’s deployment of rural fiber networks. Additionally, CityFibre’s long distance network will reportedly provide a new backhaul option for future Gigaclear deployments while its metro networks and POP facilities will facilitate connectivity to nearby rural areas.

“We have long been aware of the huge levels of demand for better internet connectivity in rural areas surrounding our urban network projects. It is a national embarrassment that residents and businesses in rural areas, and indeed many of those in towns and cities, have been left in the digital dark ages,” Greg Mesch, chief executive of CityFibre, says.

Matthew Hare, chief executive at Gigaclear stresses that bringing broadband to rural Britain has its challenges, but the partnership gives Gigaclear access to more capacity, faster delivery and more flexible bandwidth across the country.

“It helps us build Gigabit networks where other operators do not reach, to meet the demand for better broadband from homes and businesses,” Hare says.