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Millions of Americans Still Crawling With Dial-Up

By Megan Tady

Brian Beaudet lives in what’s locally called a “holler” in rural Marshall, N.C. “It’s very secluded but my family likes the privacy and the nature that surrounds us,” he says. A software developer, Beaudet and his family moved to Marshall because he has the luxury of working wherever there’s a “broadband connection to the outer world.” When they purchased their house… return to article

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    Thanks for a useful article. I also live in North Carolina and telecommute to my job, which is more than 50 miles from my home in Pittsboro, NC. I too have been limited to dialup, which obviously makes my telecommute a difficult one. What is especially grating about my situation, though, is that I live about eight miles from downtown Chapel Hill, NC—home of the University of North Carolina, which as you would expect is extremely well-resourced bandwidth-wise.

    We live in what was once a rural area—we moved here 14 years ago—but what was once rural is now more a suburb of Chapel Hill. Our problem is that we live on the edge of our telephone provider’s territory. For the last eightyears, we have been promised that DSL would be coming “in the next six months.” However, at the end of every six-month period we renew our membership with EarthLink dialup. 8-(

    In mid-September 2008 we were told that we would have DSL “certainly no later than Halloween.” Here it is 3 November and we still haven’t seen it. Let’s hope we’re not in for another disappointment.

    Mark MacAllister
    Pittsboro, NC

    United States Posted by markmacallister on Nov 3, 2008 at 11:23 PM
    Page 1 of 1 pages

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