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

Re:and

[PoopJuggler]

It also means that 6.2% of Americans aren't getting gouged or ripped-off by the telcos.

Re:why bother when there are cell phones?

[nxtr]

If you had read the article, you would've realized that they went to the town dump to make a call, because they got the best reception there.

Re:Don't forget the Amish

[deathazre]

the hell, the amish have a website?

Rural Telecommunications Acts

[green pizza]

In the USA, there are Rural Telecommunication (and electrification) Acts. I'm not sure about new construction, but I know that in rural Texas if you have an old isolated homestead in need of telephone service, you can call up the nearest telco and they'll string out lines no matter what it costs. It all gets paid for by federal grants.

The only catch is the telco territory boundries. Sometimes two telcos will bicker over who gets to (or who has to) string the lines. A vist to your state's public services commissioner will get things moving though.

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!