Some of us poor sods out here still use dial up internet. Yes, it is still around. According to the Net Index by Ookla, Zambia has the slowest internet speed in the world. Guess what? Mine is slower.

AT&T, our local provider of landline service would much rather go after the big money in cell phones and wireless internet access. Meanwhile all us rural people have unreliable telephone service and no real option for broadband. Sure, I could get a smart phone or USB modem but every 'unlimited' plan has a 5GB per month limit. After that someone comes and breaks your kneecaps or does something else horrible. So it should really be called Limited Unlimited*! Satellite internet? Go peddle that sugar someplace else. Ask anyone who's had it.

Over the years here my phone service has gone out due to rain more times than I can count. That must be what happens when the string gets wet. Fog kills my phone line for a few hours until the sun comes out. Until last year there was a phone company pedestal out in a nearby pasture. It's the thing that comes up out of the ground where the wires are spliced together. The cows in that pasture found the pedestal was the best thing to gather around and rub against. I don't know how many time my phone was knocked out by cows. Finally a repairman shoved the wires down into the base and wrapped it in waterproofing membrane. Now the cows hang out somewhere else. The repair guys are great, even if I have come unhinged at a few. They somehow manage to keep these old wires installed during the Roosevelt administration functioning as best they can.

So for me, no streaming video, Youtube (unless I let the page load for hours), webcasts or any of these other modern things talked about every day. Hulu, watching episodes of anything online or visiting the Apple store might as well be walking on the moon. It ain't gonna happen.

A couple years ago, a big announcement was made here. Sprint would bring 4G Wimax, by the end of 2008!!! Well, Sprint got hooked up with Clearwire. Their love child, Clear, took off for the big city. Every day I see Clear ads on TV and in the newspaper. We can't get it, not even standing on the roof on my tiptoes. National Broadband Plan? Ha. I can wait five to ten years for that.