PROMISES, PROMISES

One of the constant debates in rural communities is when, just when, are going to get high speed Internet?

Remember dial-up? That’s our reality in the country. What you may have forgotten is just how slow it is. Downloading material is just out of the question, and if all of us in the area are online at the same time, forget it. Plus you are tying up a phone line.

In a recent editorial in Harrowsmith Country Life, I chuckled as I read the editorial, in which the country-living editor bemoaned the fact that despite numerous promises of high speed, he no longer believed companies that said they would deliver it.

Tired of waiting, we switched to satellite, but it’s an expensive option and if the weather is stormy, you are out of luck. It’s also not high-speed, so downloading is still a challenge.

Only a month ago we were told that high speed was coming to the neighbourhood, and I came home early to meet up with the installer. He never came. And this is a fairly typical scenario.

I am often asked why I don’t work more from home, especially with modern technology. But the truth of the matter is at the farm we don’t have the benefit of that technology.

When I talked to a young phone salesman, he explained that in some rural areas, we don’t have a “cable footprint.” Well it seems to me that it is time we did.