digital age is slow to arrive in rural america

8/7/2019 Digital Age Is Slow to Arrive in Rural America

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Digital Age Is Slow to Arrive in Rural AmericaCOFFEEVILLE, Ala. After a couple of days in this part of rural Alabama, it ishard to complain about a dropped iPhone call or a Cee Lo video that takes a few seconds too long to load.

The county administrator cannot get broadband at her house. Neither can thesportswriter at The Thomasville Times .

Here in Coffeeville, the only computer many students ever touch is at the highschool.

Im missing a whole lot, said Justin Bell, 17. I know that.

As the world embraces its digital age two billion people now use the Internetregularly the line delineating two Americas has become more broadly drawn.There are those who have reliable, fast access to the Internet, and those, like abouthalf of the 27,867 people here in Clarke County, who do not.

In rural America, only 60 percent of households use broadband Internet service,according to a report released Thursday by the Department of Commerce. That is10 percent less than urban households. Over all, 28 percent of Americans do notuse the Internet at all.

The report was developed in conjunction with a national broadband map that wasalso released Thursday, as part of a billion-dollar effort to improve Internet accessin the United States, particularly in rural areas.

Pushing Americas digital expansion is a point of emphasis for President Obama ,who on Thursday night held a private meeting with Silicon Valleys elite, includingFacebook s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg , and Carol Bartz , president and chief executive of Yahoo . His administration has given $7.2 billion in stimulus money toward the effort, including the map, which took five years and $200 million todevelop and shows a number of discrepancies in the quality and availability of broadband access between rural and urban communities.

This is like electricity was, said Brian Depew, an assistant director of the Centerfor Rural Affairs , a nonprofit research group in Lyons, Neb. This is a criticalutility.


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You often hear people talk about broadband from a business developmentperspective, but its much more significant than that, Mr. Depew added. This isabout whether rural communities are going to participate in our democratic society.If you dont have effective broadband, you are cut out of things that are really coreto who we are as a country.

Affordable broadband service through hard wiring and or cellular phone coveragecould revolutionize life in rural parts of the country. Pe ople could pay bills, shopand visit doctors online. They could work from home and take college classes.

Increasingly, interacting with certain branches of government can be done only online. And sometimes, a lack of cellphone or e-mail access can have seriousconsequences. Emergency alerts regarding severe weather, for example, are oftensent only through text or e-mail.

All of that is important, certainly. But here in Clarke County, where churches andtaxidermy shops line the main roads and drivers learn early to dodge logging truckshauling pine trees, most people would simply like to upload photos of their childrento Facebook.

Ninety-five percent of the people in this county who want public water can have it,but people cant even talk to each other around here, said Sharon Jones, 60, whoowns a small logging company with her husband and lives just outside Coffeeville.

It took her three days to try to arrange a meeting with the governor 150 miles away in Montgomery because such inquiries cannot be made over the phone and she hadto drive 45 minutes to her daughters house to use e-mail.

At home, her cellphone works only if she walks to the porch and stands at the end of a bench. They have dial-up at the office, but thats so slow it makes you pull yourhair out, Mrs. Jones said. A satellite dish is out of the question because her houseis surrounded by trees.

It takes 10 times the effort to do what someone else can do in a matter of fiveminutes, she said.

For many here, where the median household income is $27,388, the existingcellphone and Internet options are too expensive.

Joyce Graham, who oversees Web-based classes at Coffeeville High School, hasstruggled with dial-up service at home since 2000. A month ago, she started buyingsatellite service with help from stimulus money.


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For most people out here, satellite is all you can get, and its $70 a month, shesaid. Now who is going to pay that? This is a poor, rural county.

Not that all of the county is without decent coverage. Some towns have broadbandservice, and other people can get it using wireless cellular lines.

Sheldon Day, the mayor of Thomasville, about 25 miles northeast of here, prideshimself on his citys embrace of technology. Broadband is widely available, andpolice cars have computers. But even getting e-mail on a smartphone in the middleof town can be maddening.

There are areas within five miles of where I am sitting that dont have any connectivity, even with cell service, he said.

Gina Wilson, director of the Thomasville library, oversees 11 terminals with

lightning-fast Internet access, paid for with stimulus money. They attract studentsand the unemployed during the day. At night, people stop by after work to check their e-mail or scroll through Facebook.

Mrs. Wilson noticed that after hours, people would pull into the parking lot to try touse the librarys wireless signal. So she started leaving it on all night, and plans topost a sign on the door with the password (which, if you are in Thomasville andneed to get online, is guest).

A group of community leaders worked for years on a $5.5 million co -op-style plan

to attach microwave technology to the numerous water towers in the area soeveryone could have affordable wireless service. They applied for stimulus money,but were turned down.

The tiny Pine Belt Telephone Company also tried for stimulus money, hoping to runa fiber optic line into Coffeeville. They, too, were turned down.

Essentially it comes down to the big, national companies not wanting to invest andthe lack of interest in certain areas, said John Nettles, who runs the family-ownedtelecommunication company. Its not much different than the impact the big -box

stores have had on rural America and small-town businesses.

A spokesman for AT&T, which offers coverage in parts of Clarke Country, declinedto comment.

Alabama, using federal and state grants, is working with service providers toexpand coverage. State officials are also dispatching teams with mobile computerlabs to show people why they need the Internet. The theory is that increasing


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demand will make it more lucrative for companies to invest in technology andprovide online service at prices that residents can afford.

It is a hard sell, especially among older residents. A study last year by the Pew Internet and American Life Project showed that a fifth of adults do not use the

Internet because they feel it is not relevant to their lives.

The people who could benefit from broadband the most use it the least, saidAmelia Hall Stehouwer, a researcher from Auburn University who works with ruralAlabama communities.

Still, here in the Pine Belt, it will be a long road to the digital age.

We are trying to pull ourselves into the 21st century, said Mrs. Jones, the loggingcompany owner. I dont think the rest of the world understands there is a piece of

the world here that is really challenged.

Tomado de.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/us/18broadband.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hpw

digital age is slow to arrive in rural america

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