Reply #8: The landlines in rural American are often awful & in way to many areas

[WePurrsevere]

broadband isn't available.

We would LOVE to have broadband. We're 1/4 of a mile away from cable and DSL even less. When we were looking at buying this house we called the phone company to check availability of DSL and were told no problem and that cinched the deal. After we moved in and a month later the phone company finally acknowledged that we were just a bit to far to get DSL... we still get mailings from them trying to sell us DSL.

With some of the stimulus money we got early this Summer we bought a satellite internet system figuring it would be cheaper then the 3 landlines we had (which it is) and better quality connection (which it is when it's working right). It's not dependable though and there are things we can't do because of the lag time (like VOIP).

Heck, we'd like to go to cell phone but the reception here, especially in our house for some reason, is darn near non-existent even with a new tower nearby. The landlines out here have been spliced so often, the phone company says it's voice quality (LoL.. barely at times) and we were told that the electric company won't acknowledge a problem on their end that is partly to blame for our horrible landlines. To top it all off you almost have to get a long distance and regional package because of the way the calling area is set up... a cell phone would be cheaper, if it worked right.

Anyway, I half kidding told DH this Summer when we bought the satellite internet system that the contract was for 2yrs which should get us near to the time when broadband will finally be available up here... cool.. maybe I was right. 8-)

The computers in schools and improving them in general will also be an excellent improvement. Our children are our future and they need every advantage they can get in a global marketplace. :)