Missing Out

Any serious user of the Internet knows that the difference between connecting via dial up modem and a broadband method is night and day. Living up here in the boonies, we could only dream of having access to anything better than the one slow dial-up service that is available to us. In fact, I have always made very clear to everyone that the main criterion for selecting a new place to live, if we ever sell our ranch, would be some place with access to either cable or DSL Internet. Late last year, I even came very close to opening another office, in downtown Harrison, just to have access to the cable Internet.

Since this January, we have been using the DirecWay two-way satellite. Overall, it has been great, allowing us to do things that would be impossible over dial-up, such as listening to & watching Rush Limbaugh's show. This came at the perfect time, because we can no longer pick it up via over the air radio.

The satellite has been very reliable, except for times when there are heavy clouds, which does happen about once a week. We had been pestering our local phone company for years to make DSL available up here. Even with the satellite, we still want DSL as a backup. Although our phone company just started connecting some customers to DSL, we have been informed that our line is well beyond the distance limits of DSL technology from the closest switching station. So, we have resigned ourselves to being satisfied with and grateful for the satellite. At $69.95 per month, I consider it a bargain considering the huge increase in productivity it allows. That is why it boggles my mind to see that so many other people around the country are refusing to sign up for broadband service, often for even less than we are paying. Unfortunately, if more people don't sign up, more of the broadband companies will be going out of business.

KMK
- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 9/24/2002 12:15:00 PM Send this post: