I want to thank Trish Harren from Itasca County for sharing the following story. I have kids the same age so I just love it. It gets to the point that the next generation cannot compete with lesser broadband and they are *not* going to live in a town without broadband – today it’s for gaming, but tomorrow is might be for remote learning, then a job, then remote healthcare…

I just had a conversation with my 16 year old son last night. Perhaps conversation is not the right word. Perhaps I had more of an intervention. He was playing “League” and is apparently ranked. Not sure what that exactly means. But I grasped it is a big deal that takes 100’s of hours to achieve. There was a glitch in our internet and Noah got kicked off the server. Apparently this resulted in his loss of rank from silver to bronze and it will take him nine hours to get that ranking back. That is if he wins every match. I am a bit fuzzy on all the details as he was yelling and jumping up and down and then crying and telling me he wanted to move to South Africa where at least he would have reliable internet. He is very certain that there are even remote villages in the sub-Saharan dessert that have better internet than he has. I am not sure if that is true. What is known is that reliable high speed internet is VERY VERY important to my son.

Partially I love the hyperbole! Except here’s the real answer, according to Wikipedia’s retelling of Akamai’s list of countries by Internet speed US is in better shape that South Africa – but here are a list of countries that beat the US. I don’t have speeds in Itasca County – just coverage. I know strides are being made – but when its your house off the grid and your 16 that’s all that matters! I think that’s probably true at any age.
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