Sunday, April 12, 2009

Rural Broadband


this is my rural broadband story. things i talk about in this video include page county virginia, hughesnet (check out their service plans and bandwidth limits - top tier service which allows a whole 500mb a day for $350 a month, no joke), highspeedLINK (our new local provider who gives us unlimited bandwidth hurray!). if you or someone you know does not have access to broadband, check out WeNeedBroadband.com and sign their list.

if you would like to share this video, here is some embed code, just copy and paste:

<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/g5Ne+dx3AA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="390"></embed>

14 comments:

Krystian said...

Wow, that sucks, and i though my broadband was expensive.

Unknown said...

the really sad part is that I don't think it's going to get any better with the new administration. I really don't, I had high hopes but just based on what I have read and some of the other things that are happening with the other major broadband providers, I don't see them investing like they should, and a lot of that falls on the FCC and the mistakes they have made and continue to make.....sigh...

ryanne said...

heath
last week the FCC started meeting about a national broadband plan to build out infrastructure for 'unserved and underserved' areas of the country.

see the Washington Post article here
http://is.gd/s8Sq

though there is a lot of criticism and a ways to go, there was 7.2 billion allocated in the stimulus for Broadband projects.

so i think this is a pretty darn good start for an administration that's been in office for 4 months. remember the last 8 years? yeah....

David Lee King said...

Sounds like Kansas! I have broadband in Topeka proper - but out in the county? Very similar (except maybe for the mountains).

Our state gov just approved a grant for a state-wide broadband GIS study, which is the first piece needed to hopefuly get sme of that stimulus broadband money, so here's hoping!

Unknown said...

Yes, they have started hearings and I do know that they did allocate a large amount of money for rural broadband and yes, I agree completely that they are doing more than the last 8 years...but for me, I think it's not enough and I worry that other things and outside influnces will chip away at the process.

Broadband growth is still highly fragmented and very much geared towards major metopolitian areas and I fear that the broadband providers will only provide the barest of bones service to these rural areas or make the cost so high it's prohibited...

A big reason why the phones service worked was because of the universal service fund, and with nothing like that in place now for broadband and the extreme cap limits Time Warner is looking at...

It's just overall I worry...

So yes, I know they are doing things, it's just in this one case, at least for me, I wanted to see more and some clear direction on Net neturality, cap limits, etc...

I didn't mean to imply they were doing nothing, I just wanted more....in that regard I am a radical

:)

Oh and thanks for the link, I had not seen that article in the Post...

Rupert said...

As for you, it's vital to rural economies (and so to national economies) that they have broadband from now on.
Leaving it to local government to allocate sufficient resources for it is a disaster.
Needs to come from the top. From regulators, state government, federal government, etc.
And when the big ISPs want to get contracts for installing/upgrading high speed broadband and HD cable TV in lucrative urban districts, they should be forced to add rural districts too. Although in America, I guess that moment has pretty much passed.
That 7 billion will disappear pretty fast, but it's a great start.

Gurdonark said...

Well done.

This reminds me of the story I heard on the CBC podcast Spark about internet service in Nunavut, where everything is dial-up.

http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2008/11/episode-53-november-12-15-2008/

Imagine never having that moment of download joy in having a high enough speed for downloading mp3s and watching videos.

In the long-run, the nation needs high speed everywhere. It's a business development thing.

but in the short run, the idea of dial up in so many places tells me that we as creators must make extra efforts to get free/low cost DVDs and CDs out to folks who might be interested, to bring everyone into this digital alternative culture.

TYC said...

Ryanne, it's Tiffiniy Cheng. I live on a mountain in rural W. Mass. There is no internet on our hill. I get some cell coverage, so I mounted a trucker antenna and a cell card. It's not good enough! It's awful. Glad you found a solution.

Clintus McGintus said...

very sad. Thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

Interestingly the growth of broadband tracks closely what was happening with rual electrification in the early part of the 20th century. Rual customers and even small towns weren't able to get electrical service at all or were charged much higher rates for it because the electric companies didn't want to make the costly investments in infrastructure. The Roosevelt administration, eventually forced the build out of electrical service to rual areas through regulation and by subsidizing he build out because it was important for economic growth, jobs and the common good of the country.

The sad thing is that this didn't even start to happen until the 1930's so it still took years for some areas catch up with the rest of the country.

It seems that since high speed Internet is as important to our economy as electricity or even good roads that something similar needs to happen today. I think the Obama administration is basically on the right track on this issue. I certainly hope they are.

I guess my point is; it seems more apparent to me more now than ever that history repetes itself.

Doug said...

Oh no Ryanne, you must be mistaken...I've seen the HughesNet commercials a hundred times and they don't say anything about a bandwidth limit. Freakin' rip offs!

LaBlogga said...

sweetie - 150mb/pp/day omg how medieval! also to mention that not everyone is as technical as you and able to find other broadband options. booo Hughes Net.

Anonymous said...

I remember talking to you about this a year or so ago.

Dave Doolin said...

Cave country. I'm envious.

I'm also advising a client of video blogging. You and Jay where my first thought.

Really interested in how you came to end up in VA, would like to catch up at some point.