Group organizes to get broadband for rural area

Broadband development has been one of the most talked-about rural issues, even before passage of the economic stimulus package and its $7.2 billion broadband budget. One grassroots organization has made bringing broadband to the mountains of southeastern Kentucky its goal. Pine Mountain Residents for Broadband was created after residents realized high-speed Internet wasn't available in their area despite the multitude of advertisements and mailings from phone company Windstream advertising DSL access, Rend Smith writes for the Daily Yonder.

Windstream offers high-speed access to much of the rural area surrounding Pine Mountain and advertises heavily there. One resident, Samantha Sparkman, says she's gotten as far as having a Windstream representative schedule an appointment for her house to be outfit for a connection only to see the technician never show up, Smith writes. They don't feel like they need to bring the Internet to us because there aren't enough houses," Sparkman said at a recent PMRB meeting.

Windstream spokesperson David Avery told Smith the company "has devoted hundreds of millions of dollars to deploy broadband service to roughly 89 percent of our voice customers. We constantly explore ways to make broadband available to the remaining areas of our network, but the costs are often prohibitive to earn back the investment at affordable rates for customers." To help accomplish its goal PMRB has teamed up with other community organizations through the Web site DialupRocks.org. The group's Web site includes an online pledge to bring equal Internet access to all, and this music video for "The Dial-Up Blues" from Randy and Gabe Wilson.