Re: Yup; the Internet is screwed up. - Land Assistance...

[Don Gould <don () bowenvale co nz>]

On 12/06/2011 1:42 a.m., Lynda wrote:
> Mostly, I've just ignored this,

As do I with most treads on this list.  However I found the link in the 
OP's post offensive on so many different levels that I choose to put 
some comment in with a great deal of subtly and hopefully a little humour.

Clearly, judging by the off list comments I got, some people got it and 
some people didn't.

I'm not sure which comment in the OPs link I found most offensive, but 
the suggestion that most folk in small rural American towns are drug 
dealers and addicts was up there with the suggest that the entire reason 
for poor broadband in USA is the sole fault of AT&T.

Perhaps that's not what the article was saying.  However it is the 
impression I took from what I read, which is what compelled me to comment.

I confess that I didn't even read the entire article...  by the time I 
got though reason 2, I was already offended enough.

> since it wasn't really contributing to a
> solution for anything I could see, and wasn't finding it as amusing to
> read as the author did to write. This statement, however, needs a bit of
> changing, sir.

I am sorry the humour was lost on you. :)

I did change the subject heading on purpose, specifically so people, who 
weren't interested in the obvious direction of the thread, could simply 
ignore it.


> I'd say that "people in rural America" (many of whom are my neighbors)
> are adept at making do, and very clever at finding solutions to the
> problems that the author of this piece did not.

Agreed.  As I come from a country that has an extremely large rural 
economic component and is as far from market as we are, I very much 
understand the need to adept and make do.

> Please note that the
> author seems to be yet another transplanted city boy, and as such, might
> not have been aware of how to solve this problem quickly, and in the
> most expedient manner, but that does not mean you should lump rural
> America in one large bucket...

No it does not mean you should lump rural people in any bucket, being 
the whole point, of my first post, by suggesting that I should get help 
with setting up a farm in the centre of down town Manhattan, from the list.

Again, it's up there with the suggestion that the only way to get 
broadband in rural America is to wait until one of your drugged out 
neighbours dies from an over dose and you can then take over the free 
port on the DSLAM.


> I should also point out that the author of the article isn't even *in* a
> rural setting. Contrary to popular belief, living in a small town is not
> rural. I've lived 5 five miles out of town, and we barely considered
> that rural. We had neighbors less than a quarter mile walk away.

I've lived in a country where it take 3 hours to drive to your next 
closes neighbour, while in my own country we call a town rural when it 
has 3,000 people in it and the housing density is not far off the urban 
suburb I live in today - at which point we seem to currently consider 
they don't need ftth and 5mbit's of contended mobile broadband is more 
than enough.

> In addition (since my annoyance factor seems to be set on high), I'm a
> bit curious as to how someone living in New Zealand is so concerned with
> broadband access in the US.

I'm interested in broadband access around the world, not just the USA.

New Zealand culture is very influenced by the United States.

The United States is a large trading partner from our point of view.

What you do in the USA has global impact.  For example if the USA says 
it's ok for rural folk not to have decent broadband then out countries 
around the world, such as my own, point to the USA as a point of 
reference.  Same if you decide that every farmer must have 100Gbe 
connections.

D