Jim Hite

Some four years ago, I began an odyssey. At the time, while I feared it would be hopeless, I hoped it would be worth every effort. I would respond to the advertising that offered fast internet service, whatever the name.

Of course, since there is only one telecommunications company available where we live, the one which provides my dialup service, the target of my effort was narrow and singular.

Why seek fast access DSL or Broadband?

If you have now or have had dial-up, you know why. Five minutes and more just to get online, up to 10-15 minutes to bring in a website, the same or more to bring in E-mails, and more to send replies. Often, I found myself spending 4-5 hours handling E-mail correspondence involved with our running, as well as our officiating and other volunteer duties.

For over a two-year period, I E-mailed, telephoned and badgered my service company. I received automated replies. When I contacted the Georgia Public Service Commission, I was told it had nothing to do with Internet service. When I fired off a rather angry reply and sent another letter to the Federal Communications Commission, I got a call from the telephone company. But in the end, I was told, somewhat bluntly, that fast access DSL would not be provided to my home's location.

Contacts with other Internet providers brought the same result.

Thus it stands!

The technology exists. A privately owned company south of us provides DSL service to all its customers over a rural area like ours. France has such service throughout the entire country. But we are told it is not possible here.

I say all this to bring up the March issue of neatoday. In an article titled "Mind the Gap," a phrase well known to riders of the London Underground, the author states that while it's a high-speed, high-def, Wi-Fiworld, that world does not reach much of our country. Without universal access to such technology, the author continues, a generation will be left behind unable to participate in the 21st century.

The article describes four successful attempts to bring such access to isolated and mostly low-income areas. The one that struck me was a coal town in rural Pennsylvania where the superintendent of the school district came up with BRAIN - Broadband Rural Area Information Network - offering residents high speed connections for $14 per month, replacing the dial-up service that cost nearly $40.

Then last week, the Augusta Chronicle printed an article by staff writer Betsy Gilliland, reporting on the Columbia County school system's approving new science textbooks that call for online access to course material. A board member said he would like to see a shift from reliance on textbooks to available technology. Mike Sleeper said, "My goal is to push the school system into the 21st century."

While many decry the loss of the book to the screen, none can deny that access to the Internet provides fantastic opportunities to find information on every subject taught at just about every level. And for finding material for research papers, it's a must.

Yet, here in Jenkins County, we have no such access if we live outside the city limits. And we have no hope of its ever being provided as the situation now stands.

As I was completing this column, which was to be sent to The Millen News over a week ago, but missed the deadline, I read last week's guest column by Mabel Jenkins, new chair of our Development Authority. Obviously, it struck a nerve when I came across her comments on the meeting arranged to explain bringing Broadband to the entire county. Joyce and I are members of the Chamber of Commerce, but somehow we did not get word about this meeting. If we had, I feel I would have done all I could to cajole and drag everyone I could to it, to learn about a solution. Parents of students living outside Millen should have packed the place.

I am frustrated that a big company can just plain refuse to offer a service which it is capable of offering. I am tired of having to pay for a phone line plus a DSL satellite (nearly $70 per month) to receive service better than dial-up but far from Broadband or even fast-access standards.

I don't see how students living outside the DSL service area will ever have the opportunities available to those with such service in their homes. If it takes many minutes to get online, to a website, to bring in a reference, who wants to spend that time? Such an exercise can end only in futility.

The path to success, the path out of poverty is education. And like it or not, modern education is tied very tightly to technology. Without it, the education imbalance between the haves and the have-nots, even within a county, will continue to grow.