The Internet has an almost magical way to make distances disappear. But it can also magnify them. The expectation of instant communication is so pervasive that there is little tolerance for the businesses that can’t keep up.

A business in rural Maine, off the beaten track and far from markets, better be well connected with the best communications technology if it is going to compete with companies in more convenient locations.

The start of the Three Ring Binder project promises to fortify those links and bring more parts of the state into the 21st century. It couldn’t come at a better time.

Maine’s unemployment rate is a little better than the nation’s, but the impression that Maine is doing a little better than the rest of the country does not hold true if you focus on the rural counties in central, northern and Down East parts of the state, which have unemployment and poverty rates as bad as any in America.

The Three Ring Binder, a private development made possible with federal grant money, promises to bring high-speed Internet service to those communities that are suffering the worst economically.

“It will drive economic development in the state for years to come,” said Dwight Allison, chief executive officer of Maine Fiber Co., the entity created to oversee the construction and leasing of the new 1,100-mile information superhighway.

Within three years, all the cable will be installed, connecting 110,000 families in 100 communities in a way that they have not been connected before.

From large institutions, such as colleges and hospitals, to small businesses like specialty shops or motels, rural Mainers won’t be as isolated any more.