My mother's dining room table is an office with a view. The black-dirt big field on her farm has a sandy crust that sprouts tiny green pigtails this time of year. Watch for a while and you'll see a herd of deer nibbling at the edges, or maybe a roving band of wild turkeys waddling up and down the rows.
Every time I visit, I entertain a fleeting fantasy: Ditch the city and the office and start a different life in this rural place. Trade the structure and stress of working for someone else for the flexibility of doing your own thing in a place with space, natural scenery and less expensive living.
Then I dial up.
That particular part of Columbus County, in N.C.'s southern coastal plain, is outside the reach of broadband or DSL or cable modem access. To check a fact, send an e-mail or, for that matter, to read a daily newspaper, you wait. And wait. And wait.
Brrrrt-bonnnnnk-breeeeeek! Then: thousand one, thousand two, thousand three ... and so on.
Reality sets in. Even the best business plan can't overcome digital exile.
The gold standard
That's a round-about way of explaining why universal high-speed Internet access is important in North Carolina, but it's on point. Debate this election year has focused heavily on roads, and the need to reform the state's antiquated, politics-infested system of planning, building and paying for transportation. There's good reason. Growth in commerce and population has sprawled beyond the state's ability to build and maintain infrastructure for an effective highway system.But when we talk about infrastructure, we ought to talk about high-speed Internet access, too. It's the gold standard for education, medicine and economic development, the equivalent of an eight-lane interstate in a global, information-based economy.
Communities that are without it -- plenty still are -- are simply left without a crucial connection.
The state legislature created the e-NC Authority in 1999 to work with counties to bring broadband technology to their communities. Its latest report on connectivity in 2007 found access increasing at a slower rate.
The toughest problem: rural counties where there are too few people per square mile to entice cable or telecommunications companies to invest in lines and capacity.
"Major deployment in urban communities is more or less done," said Jane Smith Patterson, executive director. "What we are trying to push for now is broadband expansion into the most underserved areas of our state, which are often rural."
Consider:
• In four counties -- Jones, Greene, Warren and Gates -- less than 50 percent of the households can obtain access to high speed Internet services.
• In 21 counties, less than 70 percent of the households have access to high-speed Internet. Those counties include Columbus, Duplin, Pamlico and Washington, all in the East, and Cherokee, Macon and Graham, all in the far West. In between, counties such as Chatham and Montgomery have low rates of high-speed connectivity.
Those areas, and others like them, represent the last mile. They are at a significant disadvantage. Being without high-speed Internet in the 21st century is no different than being bypassed by electricity in the last century.
In the dark
Just look at some of the things high-speed allows you to do.
• Take most online college courses offered by the state's university system.
• Go to a clinic or small hospital nearby and be examined by a specialist in a regional medical center.
• Grow a global start-up business such as graphics, consulting or engineering in a rural community.
• Sell your cottage industry's products globally.
• Persuade investors in a center of commerce such Charlotte or Raleigh to open franchises in your town.
The bottom line? Access to high-speed Internet is as basic today as being connected by a good road -- and offers the same public benefit. Yet the private sector will not pay to put it within reach of every household and every community in North Carolina. The state needs to step up and invest in connecting the last mile.
It's the roads, stupid, but it ought to be broadband, too.