Do we really want the whole country as addicted to the Web as I am?

I’m being a wiseguy.  I want the whole country wired.  It’s about the best thing about living in this part of the 21st Century and I think it’s wrong that anybody has to to access the Internet as if it’s still the 20th Century.  One of the best parts of the Stimulus is the grant money for bringing broadband to places what ain’t got it.  Unfortunately, some places around here haven’t yet nailed down any of that grant money.

Some rural areas in mid-Hudson region still can't get fast access to Internet

Many in Sullivan, Ulster stuck on dial-up

It's the modern equivalent of the telephone, post office and library rolled into one. Yet, despite billions of dollars of available grant money and mandates from the president and governor, thousands of local residents must live without high-speed Internet.

The lack of access in parts of Sullivan County towns like Bethel and Neversink and Ulster towns like Marbletown and Kerhonkson — areas less than 2 hours from New York City — costs residents lucrative jobs and priceless time, thanks to agonizingly slow, inefficient and unreliable dial-up and satellite connections…

High-speed Internet is also a crucial factor in whether a company moves to — or leaves — a business-hungry county like Sullivan.

Neversink Glass Co., an architectural metal and glass subcontractor in White Lake, almost left the county's industrial park because its satellite connection couldn't download architectural drawings.

Count your lucky stars if you can read all of Steve Israel’s story in the Times Herald-Record without having to wait forever for the page to load.

Comments

[mac macgillicuddy]

We only JUST got broadband here. And even so, it's dsl, via the phone company, not the truly high speed broadband. We don't live in the hinterlands, either; we're 4 miles from civilization to the south, and 6 miles to the north.

The cables run by the cable companies stop about 600 feet down the road. Seems back when the providers were dividing up their markets, they overlooked this sparsely populated area of our little town. It wasn't worth running the cables to houses that might someday be here, but weren't at the time. So they didn't. Then, as houses popped up here and there, and cable still wasn't available, people got satellite dishes. Next thing you know, it STILL isn't worth the cable companies' while to run the lines. So they didn't. And here we are.

[redkitty]

Good internet access is becoming such an indispensable part of functioning as a full-fledged citizen in the U.S. that it ought to be run as a public utility, especially since the phone system has become so much more fragmented and less useful as a universally accessable system (voice-menu hell, anyone?). And it should probably cost half the usual going rate, as well. Check out the price differential between Seattle and it's next-door neighbor Tacoma, where the city owns the infrastructure. Or the rates in other countries.