CSotD: Access denied
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You can tell the family in "Baby Blues" lives in a newer neighborhood. This is part of an ongoing story arc in which Hammie severs the cable while digging in the yard. If it were set here, he'd have to have been, I dunno, playing with a chain saw or something. And taking down a utility pole would also eliminate their electricity, which, as Jimmy Hatlo would say, is diffo.
I also note that Darryl's Internet access is evidently not bundled with their cable, which is what really caught my eye this morning. I've been in a couple of conversations recently about cable, the question being, "Cable, huh, good gawd y'all, what is it good for?"
Less and less, even out here in the sticks. In the city, approaching absolutely nothing at a faster clip.
It's a process that would gain a lot more speed if FCC regulators were required to live out here, because I'm sure they've got all sorts of options in their DC dwellings that people elsewhere do not.
For instance, a lot of people here choose Verizon for their wireless phone service. Why? Because it has the best packages, the most competitive prices?
No, because they want to make phone calls and have some chance of getting through, being understood and disconnecting when they're actually done with the conversation, not whenever the scattered phone towers lose concentration, which happens a lot in rural areas.
We do have choice. You can pick another wireless phone carrier if you happen to live on the right side of a hill, only use the phone at home and don't move around a whole lot when you talk. Which is a lot like not having wireless service at all.
As for cable, the choices are between Comcast and none. There is DirecTV, but the only people I know who have stayed with satellite for very long live way out in the boonies where there is no cable.
When I was living in western Maine, there was a dish on the side of the house and two more thrown in with the old storm windows and other junk out in the barn. Apparently, a succession of renters had tried, and then rejected, satellite.
Access was far spottier there, with entire areas that couldn't get cell phone or high speed Internet at all. I spoke about it one time with Olympia Snowe, who said she considers it not just an important issue for economic development but, in the case of cell phones, a matter of safety. She suggested that we need to extend access in the same way the REA electrified rural America in the 1930s and for much the same reason: It can't be expected to happen house-by-house.
Meanwhile, even here in a relatively well-populated part of New England, my Internet choices are limited by the fact that I'm a telecommuter, so I need a connection that will allow me to send and receive fairly large files on an instantaneous basis. For now, that's cable, and that's Comcast.
But times — and technology — are changing. SmartPhone technology is available here and seems on the verge of being technologically competitive with cable access. Meanwhile, the selection of programming being streamed is on that same verge.
Even out here in the countryside, there will come a time, and it won't be long, when the Hammies of this world will be able to slice cable to their hearts' content and we'll all just switch over to our laptops, if we haven't already.
Sorry, Wanda.
However, let me point out that sports-loving husbands aren't the ones keeping "Dancing with the Stars" and "American Idol" on the air.
Good gawd, y'all.
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