I have spent the last two years of 2020-2022 and so far in 2023 starting conversations with people from across the spectrum, from regional councils to private venture capitalists. I helped co-found a regional WISP to try to solve the digital divide and made some progress but ultimately failed in my desire to fill in most of the gaps in rural SETX, where I live.
- The Feds get headlines for throwing billions at the digital divide
- The State receives headlines for throwing millions at the digital divide
- LinkedIn and other information networks are flooded with hyperbole about how this group or company is solving the digital divide.
Countless companies and groups are holding focus groups and doing surveys about the problem which is well known – people who live in the rural space outside of town centers do not have reliable, functional, usable internet that can change their lives and help them live the same entire digital life that the city and town dwellers can. Eddie Hopkins at JEDCO calls this internet discrimination…you choose to live in the woods of SETX, and you will not have reliable, usable internet.
My frustration is that after 44 years designing and building telecom systems, including an ISP, I know this can be solved, and it can be solved for a lot less than 3000$ per household in SETX and less than four years for everyone in the SETRP and DETCOG regions of counties…for everyone.
When one of my neighbors fell to her knees when I found the solution for providing about 5 Mbps of usable internet and thanked God for sending me to save her remote job that feeds her family; this told me, ‘Houston, we have a rural internet problem that is not being solved correctly or timely.’ We can do better and should.
Billions being allocated and practical use to help people is, in too many cases, not happening. The system wants to help, the programs want to help, the foundations want to help, and the councils, county judges, and nonprofits want to help. And they are, but for the money being thrown, we should have solved the rural discrimination a decade ago, and the sad part is we could have as a country, a state, a region, we could have two times over.
There has to be a creative way to solve this challenge, and I aim to find the method and wisdom needed to thread this needle. Many intelligent people are looking at this, more brilliant than me. I want my rural SETX communities and neighbors to have the same digital opportunity as townpeople. In some cases, the quality of their lives depends on it, and in health care/mental health, it makes the difference between living and dying.
If you want to join my quest for the conversations that will ultimately solve this problem – this challenge, contact me; I would love to talk about solutions.
The above applies to food banks, health care, mental health access, and job opportunities..across the board. We should be able to solve these problems, and we can.
