Broadband Blues

Here in Xaintrie we enjoy a rural existence with beautiful scenery; wooded hills, plunging gorges, trout streams and placid lakes, peaceful meadows with scattered, contented cattle. Not too crowded, lively towns and villages which don't die in the winter when the visitors have all left. Not a bad life really. We even have broadband access to the internet.

Some would say that this is now an essential requisite to life in the 21st century although some would say otherwise. But not many. Without even attempting to analyse why this service is deemed essential, you only have to open your ears to the complaints of friends and neighbours to be convinced that a decent broadband service is not a longed-for luxury but an absolute, fundamental human right. 

Why is this?  What is so 'essential' about speedy access to the internet? Only two or three years ago we were perfectly content with our 'dial-up' connections, happily swapping simple emails with family and friends. Two or three years before that most of us were content to wait for the postal service to do what it has always done for the past century, oblivious of the internet revolution twittering into our lives.

Is the answer something to do with consumerism and desire, to indulge in the latest trends? I think it's much more than this. The message is sinking home that the internet is actually us. We are the world-wide-web. We can actually make our words count and have an effect on those pressures which govern our daily lives.

Look at the Wikipedia phenomenon.  Note also a number of recent media stories concerning how the US presidential hopeful, Barak Obama has grasped this and used it to great effect in his campaign. We all want a share of this power.

So, we now have the internet, but what has this desire for speed (of connection) got to do with it. We can use our 'phone lines and join in the 'www' jamboree. Why should we have to do this at ever increasing speeds? Well, anyone who has spent a frustrating time waiting for a web-page to manifest itself (due to the fact that the designers all presume we have fast broadband access anyway) at dial-up, non-broadband speeds will know the answer.

Here in rural France some of us have broadband, some of us don't and some of us have it only some of the time. Speeds are low, no faster than 2Mb/s at best in this area for ADSL broadband and often at slower speeds of half-a-Mb/s, no better than dial-up. The average for the whole of the UK is around 3.6Mb/s and in Paris and other large cities, speeds of well over 10Mb/s has been attainable for some time now.  Telephone-wire-delivered ADSL broadband can only be effective up to around 4 kilometres from the 'exchange'.  This leaves a lot of people beyond its reach, including a number of people I know in this neck of the woods.

A year or so ago our Département of the Corrèze and its Region of Limousin announced that they were well aware of these connection problems in rural areas, where many new enterprises and commercial initiatives were struggling to launch themselves but hampered by lack of broadband access to the internet.  This page shows the situation and progress towards one of the solutions. The service is a 'Wimax' system which entails installing an antenna on the house and receiving the signals from a transmitter mast up to 10 kilometres away. Note that we need 'Les Opérateurs Particuliers' listed half-way down the web page (those companies offering services to private households). Of the 4 companies listed here only 'Numéo is anywhere near offering a service at this time but they have been offering it for 9 months now and it still doesn't work properly. I suggested to two friends of mine in this area who were beyond ADSL reach to try this option over 6 months ago. One household has actually had the system installed for more than 2 months now and it still does not give them a satisfactory service, often totally unobtainable for days on end.  The other friend has been told she can have the service but Numéo has gone completely silent on when. In fact, I'm sure there are major technical problems with Numéo at present (check out a few forums with their name).  Is there someone out there to prove me wrong?

Enter, stage right, two-way satellite communication for internet access.  This is our latest option, apparently now viable and affordable due to new equipment developed with the private household in mind.  See this web site devoted to 'Tooway'.  I have done some research here but to cut a long, rather complex story short, it's a bit tricky to install, the kit has to be paid for (in the order of 600+ euros) rather than equipment rental included in the monthly subscription and this subscription is at least twice ADSL and Wimax charges.

Should my friend go for this option? She is an erudite, retired journalist-photographer, very much still involved in world affairs and desperate to get broadband access. Her present dial-up with Wanadoo is laughable - slow, slow, slow, connections often closing down inexplicably after a few moments.

Two-way satellite-internet is new technology at the level required by the private household so, even leaving aside the expense, will it work satisfactorily? She's a feisty lady and doesn't stand any nonsense. Like all of us here, she's on a limited pension. Will money spent on this technology be worth it?

She's not going to move house. She needs Internet in place of Internot.

Mapmaker