So I spent the past few days visiting family in rural parts of the Northeast, and though I visited four fairly widely dispersed residences, not a single one had cell phone access via either Verizon or AT&T. That’s all I could check, but I don’t think any other company facilitated service in any of these mountain towns either. Two of the four residences don’t even have computers. One had an old Dell computer (that I purchased myself five years ago in the hopes that I could check my e-mail when I visited!) and the only way to access the Internet there is via the slowest dial-up imaginable. Basically you could shower, dress and fix and east breakfast in the time it took to download a few messages and the inevitable porn spam that accompanies them.  Goddess help you if someone sends a photo, that would tie things up for a week! Why don’t we have universal Internet service yet? It worked really well at bringing telephone service to sparsely populated areas.  I have many family members anxiously awaiting DSL so they can actually benefit from the Internet. It’s true that there is a satellite option, but it’s incredibly costly and undependable as well. I know Obama’s got a lot on his plate already, but bringing online capability to rural areas sure would be appreciated by my extended family!

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