I look at a lot of broadband reports. I hear stories of broadband success and failure. But mostly I have decent (not great) access. So I forget what it’s like not to have decent access.
Ann Higgins sent this kind of quirky comment from a Current listener about how sad she is that the Current Morning Show has moveed online. If you’re not an MN Public Radio listener (or maybe not a morning listener), here’s the scoop. Dale Connelly and Jim Ed Poole have been doing the Morning Show forever. I think they picked up when Garrison Keillor quit mornings. Actually I think Jim Ed (if not both) worked with Keillor. They play a different kind of alternative music. They played the kind of alternative music that your dad likes.
Well Jim Ed retired. Thursday was their last show. So now the show has moved to Heartland Pubic Radio – available online and via HD radio. Here’s a comment from one say rural listener who can’t access the show the way she used to…
Well, I woke up to what I’ve termed “Black Friday” – December 12. I live in rural MN, where HD radio has yet to deliver Radio Heartland and most home-based internet connections are dial-up, so live-streaming music is pretty patchy. I couldn’t help thinking about how much laughter and darn good music I have enjoyed on my 30 mile commute to work. Luckily at work we have high-speed access – I’ve never been so over-joyed to arrive at work! Right away, I tuned in to Dale’s voice and his high quality musical choices. All was set right in my world again – my spirits were lifted, my mind at ease. I could greet my students with a bounce in my step! I’ll do everything I can to support Radio Heartland – thanks for still being there Dale and Mike.
This led to another email from Ann that helped me find Eldo Telecom, a blog in California that covers ‘the shameful travesty of America’s incomplete “last mile” telecommunications infrastructure that leaves millions without broadband access, stranded on the dark side of the digital divide and still connecting to the Internet the same way they did when Bill Clinton was beginning his first term as president and more than a decade after Clinton signed the 1996.” The blogger is a journalist – so it’s well written from a guy in the trenches of broadband neverland.
