| In the last few months, we tried to work up a deal with ATT/Alliance Data Com to maybe get some form of broadband in Dendron, Virginia. Jim Mathis was great and really tried to help. He was able to get a very good deal on a T1 to bring into Dendron, Virginia, but we just could not afford to pay for it. And it appears as though that's the ONLY way to get broadband in Dendron. Jim Mathis also checked DSL availability in case they could do something there, but Verizon has not updated the CO (Central Office) in our area (which I already knew from my consistent checking).
Years ago, Verizon took over GTE Land (my name for our dead zone area that used to be owned by GTE Phone service), but kept the old GTE Land customers separate from the rest of their mainstream Verizon service. I presume that was so they wouldn't have to count our area as being left in the dirt with only dialup being available.
One day a couple years ago, I stopped to talk to the Verizon technician that was at the CO in our area and asked when we would be getting DSL/broadband in our area. He said dialup isn't so bad. Right! Let him live with it day in and day out! Butthead! Sure it's better than nothing, but so are alot of distasteful things in life.
Verizon also has a very bad policy in this area, even if you want to get two phone lines and aggregate them for dialup data to get 128kpbs, it's out of sight financially. You pay the same price, or more for that second line! I called and that's what they told me! Plus, you still have to pay for your dual-line ISP (Internet Service Provider) as well! That would put us at over $100/mo for less than ISDN since it would be analog and not digital.
ISDN is also out of sight due to the various ongoing charges that would make it even more expensive than the dual phone lines plus Internet access charges!
I have talked about this before, but Dendron is in a very unique dead zone! Along with other areas as well I am sure.
Rt 31 that goes through the heart of Dendron. it also goes between Rt 10 in Surry and Rt 460 in Wakefield. Cox Cable a few years back brought Cable broadband DIRECTLY to the Surry Schools, which turns the corner on Rt 31 just about 3 miles shy of Dendron. I can't complain too much about that one since they didn't give broadband to ANY of the houses along the way where they laid the cable either!
In Wakefield/Sussex County, Charter Cable has been there for several years, just 6 miles away, and more recently Verizon brought DSL to Wakefield and backed it down Rt 31 to just about 3-4 miles down Rt 31 away from Dendron.
This effectively creates a true dead zone out of Dendron. Dendron is the last town in Surry County off Rt 31 just before it hits Sussex County with three broadband carriers coming within 3-6 miles of Dendron and no closer! They are so close you can almost taste it! But no joy!
I thought it was pretty funny when I went to SpeedMatters.org website noted above as the page takes forever to load on dialup! Guess they just want to show that speed does in fact matter - as those of us on dialup certainly know.
It's pretty sad when other countries will go the extra mile to get some sort of broadband - in some cases the fastest broadband available - for their countries' citizens, and the US sits on its `collective' hands while Rural America becomes roadkill on the information superhighway.
I'm sorry, I don't mean you Senator, you are trying at least! It's more than I can say about the totally profit motivated Verizon.
Verizon it appears is giving Capitalism a bad name!
But it seems that all this does nothing to help further our cause for broadband here in Dendron which is just a tiny little town of less than 400 souls at the edge of the world, errr, Surry County, Virginia. Where, even Surry County's initiative to help bring Wireless (at what speed that will be I shutter to think) to Surry County (government funded) will not be available for some time as they are only in the discovery/planning stages from what I understand.
And the ONLY other alternative is Satellite! Which for those of us who do real time streaming and chatting - ON DIALUP mind you - and FTP for websites we work on, would not be a real option due to the well-known lag and even that half baked option comes at a cost of about $70/mo. for any kind of close to real broadband.
And, to tell you the truth, even 200Kb/sec would be nice at this point, sad as that sounds, since we all know it is NOT true broadband.
So we sit here with only dialup because nothing else is affordable at home and wait and wait for pages and email to come in - in frustration (and SpeedMatters.org and this OpenLeft.com take forever to load) on dialup.
It has been a painstaking experience just to get my story on here! |
STATE BLOGS
