The irritating fact of living Just Out of Reach
Sprint, Oh Sprint Oh Sprint, The data caps are no good, How I'd love to quit. Being raised in a semi-rural area just minutes outside a small town comes with its pros and cons. Growing up there was a large yard to play in, but when I discovered technology at a young age, the fun of playing outside seemingly vanished just as quickly as my excitement reading about what was possible with computers appeared. The local high speed internet provider wired up both ends, and partially onto, the approximately mile-long road I call home. After excitedly discovering my address, towards the middle of said mile, was now listed in their "serviceable area" a few months ago, I quickly completed their online ordering form and waited for a call to set up the installation. I started imaging what I would do first; would I switch to Republic Wireless (or any other WiFi voice service, such as Google Voice) and start saving a boatload on phone service? I would certainly be able to access the various required websites for online assignments in a quicker fashion, as many of my professors had decided long ago to stop accepting physical paper assignments; how much time had I wasted reloading web pages or trying to complete assignments factoring in the unreliable connection and speeds? Would I start watching more YouTube videos, subscribe to Netflix and stream music non-stop? I could actually stream the movies I'd already paid for à la Amazon Prime. Maybe I would actually turn on auto-backup for my photos and just leave it on, instead of trying to remember to do it whenever I was connected to my workplace and school's WiFi. The excitement of finally getting high-speed internet with no data caps or painfully slow service quickly diminished when I was told that no, my address was not in fact serviceable unless I wanted to pay $7,000 to wire up less than half a mile. For context, there are neighbors all along the street, it's not some country-bumpkin road in the middle of nowhere. We've recently switched to Sprint for a costs savings, while simultaneously getting higher speed tethering capabilities. I won't bore you with the long history of our internet connections, speeds and data caps, but it's sufficient to say that I've gone from dial-up internet to 4G LTE speeds. What an improvement! Except...except for those pesky data caps. Currently we're getting 20GB's of data per month, with the usual unlimited voice and texting thrown in. However, I use less than 200 minutes a month on average, most of my messaging is through Facebook Messenger, and if not restrained, I could easily blow through that 20GB's in less than a day. I would absolutely love to get high speed internet at my current location. As it is, I'll probably be moving in the next few years and the cost/benefit ratio is all out of whack for something so pricey. I understand the costs make it a near impossibility to provide every single household in America with fiber-level service. Our country is physically large and that would be prohibitively expensive without a significant commitment from our government, aka, the taxpayers and private companies contributing massive amounts of capital without much of a foreseeable monetary benefit and return on investment. Without starting a political flame war in the comments, I would suggest there needs to be a healthy mix of free-market action and government regulation. Do I have all the answers? Of course not. But I've lived the majority of my life with slow internet and capped high speeds. This is the 21st century already, let's start living like it everywhere.
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