The problem is that you can’t even make a phonecall in some of these areas, much less enjoy a WiFi movie company, or do your college homework. If there is an emergency, and in very rural areas any emergency is likely to be life threatening, you can’t even call for an ambulance because there is ZERO service, or very weak/fading service at best. Line of sight is helpful in flatlands, but not in hilly or mountainous terraines.
While some areas do have some satellite services, they are extremely expensive and very limited in terms of bandwidth and services. For example, you might get some internet service, but no phone calls. Youronthly usage is also very limited.
Often when one calls to have this service installed, one is told there is no room left on the beam so it can take months or even years to acquire service.
Verizon was one of the better WiFi phone services, but they scaled back the power in rural areas so that folks can’t even make a phone call anymore. Then, they increased the cost of their service!
It’s a total pita to have to drive 50 miles to make a phonecall, especially in the winter when snow can be a-hole deep to a short girraff.
And you wonder why beef prices are $15.00/lb or more? Where do you think Western beef is raised till it’s ready to be shipped for slaughter? It’s damned dangerous work. Our family just lost a herding dog when she twisted her leg in a prairiedog hole..had to remove the leg.
Another family member broke his neck when he was butted by a protective cow. The ambulance couldn’t even find him because they don’t know the rural country. He had the same type of fracture as Christopher Reeves did.
Rattlesnake bites are common as are horses flipping over on the rider during the course of work accidents or slipping in mud.
Tractors rolling over people, bailers plucking off limbs and no phone service??? Farming/ranching is very dangerous work so even those costs get picked up by us city dwellers!
Landlines aren’t the answer to phone service in all rural areas, and they don’t do anything for our injured cowboys who have an unusable cell phone in their pockets, or some gal stuck under a tractor.
Rural service is even more necessary than it is in urban areas where businesses with phones flourish, and everything from convenience food joints, bars and libraries offer all kinds of communication services.
In my opinion, rural service is necessary and needed. There’s enough profitargin to bring them up to date with basic services even as they continue to update and improve urban services which truly are in fact, a luxury at this point.
A lot of preventable deaths occur in rural areas and there’s no excuse for it. Not in this day and age.
what does any of this have to do with increasing the lease from 3 to 10 years? would you invest millions in a lightly populated area with only a 3 year lock on it?
Wow.....How on earth did humans make it this far????