Louisiana Towns Going High-Tech

wolverineinspector writes "Mink, LA is finally getting telephone land lines after the neighbouring communities got theirs in 1970. In the article they also say that as many as 6.2% of US homes don't have phone service - that would mean that 19 million Americans don't have wired phone lines available to them."

Comments

I didn't either...

[LinuxInDallas]

I didn't have a land line either until I finally bought a house. Now the only reason I have it is because it's required for the security system. What a waste, every call on the land line is a telemarketer...about 6-10 a day.

Huh?

[dghcasp]

a survey released in October found that 93.8 percent of American households had telephones of some sort. More households had televisions--98.2 percent, according to Nielsen Media Research-NTI.

Consider that Nielson would probably have done telephone surveys to determine these statistics, how exactly do they calculate how many people don't have phones?

"Hey, call Floyd and ask if he's got a phone!"
Who's Floyd? What's his number?
I don't know, but there must be a Floyd. Hmm, not in the white pages, so he must not have a phone
So don't call him, but when you call him, ask him if he has a T.V.

Can you say Reductio ad absurdum kids? I knew you could!

WTF

[AndyChrist]

What the fuck have we been paying that universal service fee for?

Re:Just because 6.2% don't have phones

[TykeClone]

I was at a meeting this fall and one of the speakers was talking about how the Amish use technology. I thought we'd find out about those cutting edge things like blacksmithing and such, but it wasn't quite that. Apparently, as long as the technology doesn't get in the way of their religious life, it's ok.

Land line telephones = bad; cell phones (or telephones kept "out of the house") = good.

Utility power = bad; small portable generators = good

Computers = bad; Palm Pilots/Pocket PCs = good (no word on the Zaurus though - maybe that just gets you into Purgatory)

John Deere = bad; draft horses = good (and with that they're able to make a larger profit per acre farming than the typical farm in the country).

There's probably something to learn from them about not letting technology drive your life, but I don't have time to think about that now - back to Slashdot!