Technology Needed - Vermont Lacks Internet Access

Technology Needed - Vermont Lacks Internet Access

I was hit with my first (and, hopefully, my last, cold of the season. It came on fast and has lasted far longer than I had hoped. I spent Sunday feeling lousy and then left work early on both Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday has dawned dark and dreary and the cold still lingers. I’m whining a little, I know, but the biggest problem is that if and when I go home sick, I have no Internet connection and I cannot work from home! Work be damned. 

Landgrove, for all its charm and beauty, is still in the dark ages. Neither cable nor DSL is available for the majority of the town and those that truly need Internet service are forced to subscribe to pricey and unreliable satellite service. Between the cost for the hardware and the installation, coupled with the lengthy contract they require, you’re into it for several hundred dollars before you’ve even opened your first webpage or downloaded your first email. And, the speeds are reportedly too slow to really call High Speed. Streaming movies is clearly not an option.

I try not to be too political unless it’s the right opportunity or the right forum, but I have to say that our state and federal leaders have failed us. Greatly. More than three years ago, sitting but retiring Vermont Governor Jim Douglass promised us that Vermont would be an E-State by the end of 2010 – promising cellular and Internet coverage in all but the most remote parts of the state. Well, Jim, we’re 45 days from the end of 2010 and much of Vermont still has spotty cell-phone coverage and no high-speed Internet service. How can Vermonters compete with the world, much less our own countrymen and –women when we can’t work from home, when our kids can’t do their homework, and when vacation-home buyers are starting (seriously!) to consider buying in other parts of the state, region and country so that they can be assured of Internet and cell coverage. This is a disgrace!

This country, and Vermont in particular, needs to spend federal stimulus dollars on getting its citizens up and running technologically. I’ve been in the wilds of Mexico, the islands off the coast of Venezuela and the mountains of rural Canada with better access to technology. Why is that that every other person in the developing world, including most of Asia has better access to cell and Internet service than those of us lucky enough to call Vermont our Home?