Stimulus Funds Help Wire Rural Homes For Internet

[SpartanDem]

Up in rural northern Vermont, it took until the 1960s to run power lines to some towns — decades after the rest of America got turned on.

These days, it's the digital revolution that remains but a rumor in much of rural America.

Dial-up user Val Houde knows this as well as anybody. After moving here four years ago, the 51-year-old mother of four took a correspondence course for medical transcription, hoping to work from home. She plunked down $800, took the course, then found out the software wasn't compatible with dial-up Internet, the only kind available to her.
.....
Seventy years ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt realized that if private industry wouldn't run power lines out to the farthest reaches of rural areas, it would take government money to help make it happen. In 1935, the Rural Electrification Administration was established to deliver electricity to the Tennessee Valley and beyond.

Now, money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is doing the same with broadband, which is typically defined as DSL (digital subscriber line), cable modem, fiber optic or fixed wireless

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=133331693

[Lucinda]

1. Good. I'd like to move more rural. Only thing keeping me citified is the internet(s)

:hi:

[kestrel91316]

2. I will believe they mean business when they wire Baker, NV for internet:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=baker+nv&wrapid=tlif129634989201510&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Baker,+NV&gl=us&ei=wbpETfmdCY2WsgPi5sDBCg&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBsQ8gEwAA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker,_Nevada

http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotos-g60840-d524360-Silver_Jack_Inn-Baker_Nevada.html#1397323

[pipoman]

4. WildBlue

http://www.wildblue.com/

[pipoman]

3. Nonsense

Hughes and WildBlue has been around for a decade. I have been on satellite for 8 years. It isn't cable, but it sure as hell isn't dial up either. My wife plays WoW, that woman could absolutely transcribe.

[DividedWeAre]

7. Too slow still

I had Hughes, then Wildblue, now Hughes again. Users here move back and forth to whichever one is not "overloaded". Currently that is Hughes in my area. I can live with latency, but I need some speed and a reasonable throttling. Currently, I have neither. @$80 per month for mediocre speed (330k) is not America's finest moment but that is what I contend with. The Internet is too important these days to be left so far behind. This is where Government should step in to assist it's citizenry.

[pipoman]

8. We had hughes

and have had WildBlue for 5 years. When we first got it it did have overload problems. We have had very consistent service now for over 2 years. There is some latency, but it beats dialup by a magnitude, as I said, my wife plays Wow...you could never play that on dialup. This article doesn't say one single word about satellite internet service. Would I rather have broadband? Damn right, I would switch tomorrow, does the woman in the example have access to faster service? Yes she does, she chooses not to use it. My only point is that the article isn't completely honest.

My personal frustration is that just across the road, 100 feet from my front door there is a publicly paid for fiber optic line owned by AT&T which was put in to service the airport 2 miles beyond my house. They will not allow me access even if I pay to cross the road.

[customerserviceguy]

5. The Internet has changed shopping, too

Instead of having to drive to the big-box store in the next sizable town, rural folks can get a lot of their consumer goods online, including from other folks, like on eBay.

It's cutting out a lot of expensive middlemen.

[Name removed]

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