Internet is Infrastructure, Not Nicety

Over the holiday break, I was visiting family in central Minnesota where they rely on dial-up for getting on the Internet. Translation: They are not on the Internet. Though I have previously said this, my experiences reminded me that nothing I do on the Internet on a daily basis is possible to do over dialup. I use gmail for my email - the delays in reading messages are intolerable and render email painful. Checking news sites is right out - they load up with all kinds of images and rich media advertisements. There is no "surfing" because it takes minutes to load a page - more like running through water than surfing over it. When I visit other family south of the metro area, I can use slow DSL - the best connection available there (at a price greater than what I pay in Saint Paul for a far faster connection) and the difference is notable - particularly when I try to send a large file to someone. When I returned home, I was ever-so-thankful for my faster cable connection... which is still far slower than options in many European or Asian countries though I pay far more than they do. Last month, Ben Scott of Free Press spoke on the NPR show "On the Media" regarding the importance of Internet access:

And if you look back through the 20th century over the last 100 years of history, what you see is every time a new technology came along that later became a fundamental infrastructure that no one would disagree is necessary for universal access, there was this debate. Do people really need to have flush toilets in their house? I can make do with an outhouse. Do we really need to have electricity? Farmers in Iowa, they like their candles. Why would anyone want to have a telephone in their house? Then people can bother you in the evenings.

The longer we waste our time hoping private companies will sufficiently invest in the next generation infrastructure we need for modern communications, the farther behind we will fall and the more frustrating our connections will be. In February, when the FCC is required to present a national broadband plan, the Obama Administration will almost certainly unveil a timid plan rather than risk threatening the massive profits of companies like Comcast and AT&T. As in previous years, it is still up to forward-thinking communities to build the networks of tomorrow. Welcome to 2010. For us, 2010 will start just as 2009 ended, with fewer posts on this site. We are in the midst of a project that is taking our focus for the next few days at a minimum. We have not lost interest in improving this site -- but it will temporarily be de-prioritized because we have a small staff and we have to make choices. We will post, but not every day. Thank you for your patience.