Yea I want to live in rural area, but I would not live without high bandwidth internet access ...
There are options out there, just have to be willing to budge in one direction or the other ... Price, Home, Internet ... good internet low price usually means crappy home, good price and good home means crappy internet ...
ThisOP has to make a tradeoff decision. Deal with slow internet or find someplace closer to town. He's trying to have it both ways, which isn't going to work.
No chance in hell I would buy a house without broadband, and chances are if the house is an area without it I wouldn't want to live there anyway.
Telling your kids to go outside is a hilarious suggestion...broadband is a necessity these days, esp if your family is already used to it.
Man the country sucks.
I work in a school, I know a lot of students and have seen a lot of students come and go over the years. The kids who are most involved and have the strongest, more meaningful friendships are in general, not the kids whose lives revolve around television and electronic devices. Granted, electronic devices are more important in today's world, but there's very little that's important on them for children that requires a lot of bandwidth.
The "go outside" was meant as a bit of hyperbole. The role of the parent should be to encourage as much development as possible for the child - learn new hobbies, learn new skills. Get involved. A large percentage of kids at the top of their class don't leave the school at 3pm. Sports practices, quiz bowl teams, FFA stuff, school musicals, etc. I teach at a small high school. 300 kids. This Spring, in addition to the golf team, baseball team, softball team, and track team, the 2 year old trap shooting team will have 50 members. That's 1 in 6 students is on that team alone. Then, there are all sorts of other things that kids get involved in; quite a few spend a bit of time volunteering for various things. Spend 4 hours a weekend, once a month at the SPCA and see how well that boosts you in the rankings for scholarships - many if not most scholarships and universities are looking at how much community service students have done.
And, for the kids in the country, there are a lot of opportunities that many kids in the city will never have a chance to enjoy - building a tree fort, they made their own motocross track (and destroyed a riding mower and bent up my tractor bucket a bit in the process), hunting (on their own after a certain age), they learned to use a lot of tools, and often, powerful tools. And yes, occasionally they played video games - but it was a tiny percentage of their time, and they never whined that "I can't go on an 18 hour quest on World of Warcraft this weekend. My life sucks." They had friends - and it required us driving them to their friends' house or vice versa. And, yes, they played outside in the winter time. Somewhere around here I have a picture of the giant snow penis my son and his friend constructed. Got a call from someone on the town board pretty quickly over that one.
If Verizon 4GLTE works at your place there are guys on ebay that will sell you a MiFi and provide unlimited service for ~ $100 a month. I wish I would have done it but I'm in contract so I'll ride it out but 20gigs and some shitty bottom line phone plan costs me $200/mo.
Here is one. There are others...http://www.ebay.com/itm/Verizon-Wir..._Mobile_Broadband_Devices&hash=item4ae3a18eca
Broadband I argue is not a necessity. Light tasks such as browsing and email can be accomplished via dial up or satellite if patience is asking too much. If you want video, the nearest Starbucks or library can likely accommodate you. Chances are you go there at least once a week anyway.
I work in a school, I know a lot of students and have seen a lot of students come and go over the years. The kids who are most involved and have the strongest, more meaningful friendships are in general, not the kids whose lives revolve around television and electronic devices. Granted, electronic devices are more important in today's world, but there's very little that's important on them for children that requires a lot of bandwidth.
The "go outside" was meant as a bit of hyperbole. The role of the parent should be to encourage as much development as possible for the child - learn new hobbies, learn new skills. Get involved. A large percentage of kids at the top of their class don't leave the school at 3pm. Sports practices, quiz bowl teams, FFA stuff, school musicals, etc. I teach at a small high school. 300 kids. This Spring, in addition to the golf team, baseball team, softball team, and track team, the 2 year old trap shooting team will have 50 members. That's 1 in 6 students is on that team alone. Then, there are all sorts of other things that kids get involved in; quite a few spend a bit of time volunteering for various things. Spend 4 hours a weekend, once a month at the SPCA and see how well that boosts you in the rankings for scholarships - many if not most scholarships and universities are looking at how much community service students have done.
And, for the kids in the country, there are a lot of opportunities that many kids in the city will never have a chance to enjoy - building a tree fort, they made their own motocross track (and destroyed a riding mower and bent up my tractor bucket a bit in the process), hunting (on their own after a certain age), they learned to use a lot of tools, and often, powerful tools. And yes, occasionally they played video games - but it was a tiny percentage of their time, and they never whined that "I can't go on an 18 hour quest on World of Warcraft this weekend. My life sucks." They had friends - and it required us driving them to their friends' house or vice versa. And, yes, they played outside in the winter time. Somewhere around here I have a picture of the giant snow penis my son and his friend constructed. Got a call from someone on the town board pretty quickly over that one.
Pretty sure we've all done that at one time.
For you and everyone else who keeps bringing this crap up, please keep it out of this thread. This thread is about broadband solutions for country living people, not opinions on kids behavior when they have it.
That would be a deal breaker for me, unfortunately.