Another Four-Letter Word to Ban

Soon. As a child that seemed like a vague term given just to pacify you and make you believe that whatever you wanted would be happening…. well, soon. As an adult, it’s a cop-out. 

And in the six years since we bought the farm, that is what we’ve heard about high speed Internet. How does the ad go… Coming soon to a neighbourhood near you. Well high speed may have come to numerous neighbourhoods near us, but it ain’t here yet. 

Some of you may be wondering what the big deal is? Remember dial up? How s..l..o..w it was? After a couple of years of tying up the phone line and still not getting great service, we gave in and went to satellite. Now this is not an inexpensive option and while faster than dial-up, high-speed it is not. It is also very fickle – and very sensitive to the weather – so if we have had a storm, it has rained, or a bit of snow… forget it. 

Lately there has been a rumour that we are getting high-speed …soon. But I am somewhat cynical and it can’t come quick enough for me. 

Word of advice to advertisers – forget the word soon – be specific – you might get more buy-in then.

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.