What It's Like To Live in America Without Broadband Internet (vice.com)

Motherboard has an interesting piece which serves as a reminder that even today in every single state, a portion of the population doesn't have access to broadband, and some have no access to the internet at all. From the piece: Wilfong (an anecdote used in the story) is one of the more than 24 million Americans, or about 8 percent of the country, who don't have access to high-speed internet, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) -- and that's a conservative estimate. Most of them live in rural and tribal areas, though the problem affects urban communities, too. In every single state, a portion of the population doesn't have access to broadband.

The reasons these communities have been left behind are as diverse as the areas themselves. Rural regions like Wilfong's hometown of Marlinton are not densely populated enough to get telecom companies to invest in building the infrastructure to serve them. Some areas can be labeled as "served" by telecoms even if many homes don't actually have internet access, as in Sharon Township, Michigan, just a short drive from the technology hub of Ann Arbor. Others are just really far away. These places are so geographically remote that laying cable is physically and financially prohibitive, so towns like Orleans, California, have started their own nonprofit internet services instead.

Comments

Soon to be a new show on "history" channel!

[Kenja]

Already got nonsense about mountain men and what not, so why not "broadbandless"!

Re:Soon to be a new show on "history" channel!

[Chelloveck]

"A new breed of American Frontiersman. Rugged. Independent. BROADBANDLESS."

Couldn't be worse than Duck Dynasty.

Re:Soon to be a new show on "history" channel!

[Drethon]

The concept of mountain men makes some sense as you could learn about living off the land (haven't watched the show myself but I suspect the usual rather light on actual educational content...). In the next few year years when the only transportation is self driving ubers and everyone gets food via Amazon drones, broadbandless might very well be an extremely relevant show about how to survive when you have to use your own feet to get to a food supply.

Re:Soon to be a new show on "history" channel!

[cayenne8]

The concept of mountain men makes some sense as you could learn about living off the land (haven't watched the show myself but I suspect the usual rather light on actual educational content...). In the next few year years when the only transportation is self driving ubers and everyone gets food via Amazon drones, broadbandless might very well be an extremely relevant show about how to survive when you have to use your own feet to get to a food supply.

You know, just contemplating it, but just let ONE bad event happen that knocks out the US power grid, for even a week or more and let's see how bad things get.

I mean, our infrastructure is so open to hacking it seems, it isn't well secured by any stretch of imagination and any bad entity, is likely already salivating at turning the switches off.

Or, what if a nice large sun flare gets aimed our way, didn't a bit of a scary one a couple years back get thrown off that was a little too close for comfort?

If something like this happens, those "mountain men" or at least those that know how to live off the land, and are actually physically fit will be about the only ones that don't get caught up in the upheaval....whether it be fighting over scarce resources or just trying to survive when everyone realizes the supermarket fairy just isn't going to come by anymore and magically stock things up any time soon.

The majority of people cannot fend or take care of themselves, and if we were to go country wide without power for as little as a week, things are likely to get nasty.

I won't even start to think about the prisons all unloading and letting all those charming folks out to the streets again....whew.

Not like they're missing out on much anyway

[Rick Schumann]

At current the Internet is kind of a waste of time, they're probably better off without it, are getting more important things done, reading more books, etc.

Re:Not like they're missing out on much anyway

[uncqual]

The "Irish slave" claim is really a myth. There were many Irish indentured servants but indentured servitude is not the same as slavery. Being an indentured servant often was not a good life, but there were very critical differences between being an indentured servant and a slave.

For example:

• Indentured servants were considered a full "person". Slaves were not.
• Indentured servants entered into a contract which required, typically in exchange for passage to the Colonies/US, them to provide services for a fixed period of time (often seven years). Being a slave was "for life".
• Indentured servants didn't pass their status on to their offspring. Slaves did.
• Many, perhaps most, indentured servants willingly entered in to the deal (albeit, maybe not completely aware of what they were getting into). Slaves did not.
• Indentured servants (and their offspring) were not the "property" of the person they were serving. Slaves were.

More information is here, here, here, and here.

Know this full well

[Strider-]

I operate the internet connections to two remote communities in Washington State. In the end, I have between 80 and 100 people connected via a 3.3Mbps/900kbps satellite link. Collectively, they push between 20 and 30 GiB a day through the link. The only thing that makes it usable is the extremely aggressive QoS I have on the link, ensuring everyone gets a fair kick at the can.

So why Satellite? In the case of these two communities, it's the only viable option. They are both in extremely rugged terrain, surrounded either by National Park or federal wilderness area. The nearest cellular tower is probably 50 miles and 2 or 3 valleys away, the nearest telephone pole about the same. It would be theoretically possible to lay a submarine fiber cable up the lake, but the lake is 1500' deep making a cable laying effort comperable to a short oceanic cable run. And there's no way the costs would be recouped from under 200 residents.

I once plotted out what it would take to link out via fixed wireless, and it would require two self-powered repeater sites, in areas that easily receive 400" of snow a winter. The added bonus is that one of these repeaters would have to be located on a ridge in the federal wilderness. Making this happen would literally require an act of congress to approve, and given how dysfunctional congress is... Plus the whole system would probably cost about $400k to build, again not something that's going to be recouped from the small number of users.

So, in the end, we pay our satellite fees. Those who want faster service arrange their own links via ViaSat or similar, and we continue on. If SpaceX ever gets StarLink off the ground, that could easily be a good option. However, I'd love to see how their flat Ku-Band antennas will work in areas that get significant snowfall, and have a limited view of the sky due to rugged terrain.

Re:Know this full well

[Strider-]

Lead acid can still be slowly charged in the freezing of winter, lithium ion cannot. One repeater node will run less than $1.5k, not $400k.

I've built a couple of these before, in areas with less snow. Even on a shoestring budget, we still spent $20k on the power system alone, and it has to be supplemented by generator runs in the winter. Just powering 20W continuously requires a far larger battery bank than you'd think, especially if you want it to be able to run for at least a week with no generating capacity. When you're doing something that is safety critical, you don't dick around.

If you get caught installing unpermitted equipment on Federal land, that's uh... well, not good. We want to maintain our good relationship with the Forest Service and the National Parks Service.

They're hyping the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I've lived in one of these "underserved" rural areas for almost a decade, and have become something of an expert in non-traditional internet options. I've had fixed microwave (Rise Broadband), mobile cellular (Verizon Mifi, Sprint), fixed cellular (Verizon LTE installed), and currently have Viasat satellite. With the exception of Rise Broadband (which was horrible), all of the options worked reasonably well (stable, speeds consistently north of 10Mbps) and would be defined as broadband.

For this article to act like someone in my position has no good options for internet is disingenuous at best. It would be more accurate to say there aren't good, CHEAP options for internet. In most areas you will pay at least $100/ month to get more than 15GB of data per month. This greatly limits the amount of video you can watch online, but allows most other critical functions. I currently pay $120 a month for 150GB cap with Viasat, The speed is good except when there's a thunderstorm in the area, and I'm overall satisfied with the service.

I see articles like this and think it's overstating the problem to cause pressure on lawmakers to throw more money at building infrastructure in these areas. This may seem like a good idea, but the issue is that infrastructure is an ongoing cost. If there's not a population base to support the cost of the infrastructure, then the government will always be on the hook to pay for upgrades and maintenance. I think we'd be better served to help offset the cost of the options that do exist.

Corporations

[DaMattster]

This is the problem when we let corporations run things. They only go to areas that are going to be profitable. We even let the corporations determine what percentage constitutes coverage. And then, when we decide to subvert the corporations and go at it ourselves, said corporations hold up these efforts in the court system.

Re:Rural Internet Sucks.

[Gavagai80]

Even there, speeds were far from broadband: 2.31 Mbps download, 0.79 upload. Enough to check your email or go on Facebook, but not much else.

2.31 Mbps is enough to watch all the netflix or youtube you want at 360p. It absolutely ought to be considered broadband and it has no significant limitations. Basically this is an article about what it's like to watch non-HD videos... sheesh.

Personally I spend most of my day online but I have no use for anything faster than my 6 Mbps service (could get faster but I see no reason to pay more), which is apparently classified as not broadband these days. That's silly. It doesn't have to do 1080p to be extremely useful.

Cellular still has overages

[tepples]

Enjoy paying $30 per PC for Internet data transfer quota overages at $10 per GB when your PCs all decide to automatically download a 3 GB semiannual operating system feature upgrade.

If the state doesn't block it

[EnOne]

"towns like Orleans, California, have started their own nonprofit internet services instead."

I live in Missouri where AT&T, Comacast,... have (made campaign contributions | paid off | bribed) the state legislature so communities aren't able to create their own internet.

https://motherboard.vice.com/e...

Re:That's what VSAT is for

[aaarrrgggh]

I just looked at Sharon Township, but it shows up about 5 miles away from a point that should have fiber backhaul readily available; it should be an easy location for a wireless ISP to set up a tower and provide reasonable broadband.

Some areas lack access to any viable uplink, but places that a 200' tower can serve a 10-mile radius should be viable if they can have 40-50 households as long as there is a point with fiber somewhere near that radius.

So what?

[valnar]

If somebody lives remote in the boonies, in a swamp (Shrek), or on a mountain, chances are they picked it precisely because it was away from civilization. They aren't complaining about lack of Internet any more than they complain about an hour drive to buy groceries. Unless they are farmers (for which there should be an exception, because I thank them daily for providing us food), we really shouldn't care.

If you are a farmer with acres of beans or a ranch raising cattle so I can eat steak, then yes, we should try harder to get you Netflix or porn. Otherwise, shame on you for building a log cabin in the middle of nowhere expecting modern amenities.

Are you F'ing kidding me?

[rsilvergun]

when I was 10 I started programming. Single mom raising me (she was a Nurse) and few friends and I hit a wall pretty early on and stopped. The books at the library where all I had after all, and I didn't understand them. I picked it up again when I was 18 and did fine, but I'd lost 8 years. If I'd had stackoverflow I'd have had those 8 years.

My bro has a similar story but with his guitar. His teacher taught him bad technique. With the Internet he'd have known this and learned the right technique. He'd have been a better guitarist with the Internet.

Books are limited to the books you can get. They're hard to come by unless you're in a major city. You're at the mercy of whatever's in stock. There's catalogs, but you can't flip through a book in a catalog. And they're _expensive_. The Linux books I had back in the day were $50-$60 a pop for information I get free online now.

And this is before we talk about the political implications of a generation who grew up with the ability to google any little lie they're told when they're young. Imagine being 8 and finding out what Christopher Columbus was really like? How much less likely are to question authority when you grow up not just believing adults are full of shit but _knowing_ it?

You're looking at a few gossip sites and Facebook and writing the internet off. But the value of the Internet to somebody who wants to learn and isn't wealthy can't be overstated.