Portland, Tennessee Blog

McDonald's is one. I saw the ad for it in there the other day.

Where are the WiFi spots in Portland?

I have been told that Franklin, KY has high-speed Internet service. If this is true, I will be very upset, since we are about the same size community. I am a Web Pubisher for the TN. Department of Education and it is becoming almost vital that I be able to get broadband service to do important work from home. As a state employee I cannot afford to be gouged by the high price options offered by DirecTV and Comcast. What must we do to be brought into the 21st century? I would like to see this MUCH MORE than a community center that I don't think a lot of people will use.

I emailed Bellsouth Corporate headquarters about 3 months ago and complained that they didn't have DSL for my subdivision and that I thought they had their customers' best interest in mind. Someone called and within two weeks I was able to get DSL from Bellsouth.

Hi. My husband, my 3-year-old daughter, and I just moved to Portland a few months ago. I work from home as a medical transcriptionist, and it is vital to my employment that I have high-speed internet access. Luckily, I live in a subdivision in which Comcast provides cable/internet services. It was THE deciding factor in our move here. If there hadn't been cable/internet access here in my neighborhood then I would have missed out on living in this great community. My family and I love our new home, but my husband would have preferred to live on the outskirts of town, but we simply could not due to the fact that I work from home and must have the capability to upload/download files quickly. I wonder how many people had to choose not to live here because they needed high-speed internet access that just isn't available in many areas.

If you know how to "talk" to people you may get broadband. I live in Cottontown and they told me I couldn't get cable or cable internet - BellSouth denied me DSL. I'm happy to report Comcast is my provider! Even tho I called and they said "not aval. in your area" that changed to "ok we'll be out on such & such day" :) Keep calling, keep requesting and let them know your neighbors have it and you want it too! That's what I did :)

Money does rule, there no question about it. But the reason our governments are out of control is because they have gotten away from their intented purpose. Providing for a stable defense, etc. The internet is great, i use it hours a day and would hate to do with out it; but when the free market takes control we are better in the end.A wireless rural service server company could make a fortune in local communities, and i'm sure someone is working on it. But i agree with you that it needs to be more readily available. And as the "Rural Electrification Program" was structured, i have no problem with the feds giving out loans to help start rural internet companys, just as long as it is not run by the feds.

The private companies are cherry picking. They are going after the big population areas where the company can get a lot of revenue with minimal investment.

It's the old 80/20 rule. The company can invest in the city and get 80% of its revenue by spending 20% of a pool of money. In order to get the other 20% of the revenue, they have to spend 100% of the pool of money. They don't want to do that.

Basic economics.

Back in the 1930s, the goverenment started the Rural Electrification Program to make sure electricity was available to every household in the United States. Had they not set up a program like this, chances are those of us who can't get broadband today wouldn't need it anyway; we wouldn't have electricity!

I would hate to see our internet being implemented by our government. I would much rather see private industry get on board and make broadbad more available and cheaper; but i do agree we need to reach more households.

Hi, Denise,

I live in an area served by BellSouth. Just like you, I can't get DSL and BellSouth won't make a commitment to ever install it. I also live a mile from the end of a Comcast cable, and they won't extend the line.

Last month, I finally broke down and got WildBlue. This is a new service offered through NCTC. It's satellite Internet for a lot less than Direcway. (The installation was a little over $300, and the monthly price for the low-end service is about $50 per month. I think Direcway wanted over $900 installation.)

The upload speeds are fair (better than ISDN), but the download speeds for large files are great.

You can read about the different packages at http://www.wildblue.com or you can contact NCTC at their Westmoreland office at (615) 644-6282.

I wish the State of Tennessee wpuld lead a program to get high-speed Internet to every Tennessee address. They need to take on a leadership role.

Charlie

We have lived in Portland for 2 years and chose to purchase a house out Hwy 52 toward Oak Grove. We are not in the city limits, and just missed the boundary for DSL or broadband from TCMC. I have contacted BellSouth many times to ask if and when we will get DSL out here (I have checked and our home is within distance requirements). They have no plans to offer DSL out here and we can't get cable. Our only recourse is to go through satellite TV companies and that is very expensive. I do some work from my home on the computer (graphic design & web site) and it is very frustrating that I cannot download and send my work to people. I have to burn it onto a CD and give it to them to download to their web site. If ANYONE has any ideas about how we can get high speed internet access out here, I would LOVE to read them!!!

I agree totally with Shawn, but I would like to add one more point. It also limits a person's ability to UPLOAD information. Most of the people around here (even if they do have broadband) can't upload nearly as fast as they can download. Even though the cable and DSL lines have the capacity to upload at much higher speeds, the owners of these systems apply bottlenecks to specifically limit upload speeds.

And, of course, if you only have dial-up Internet, you have virtually zero upload speed.

This is going to hurt America. All of the talk these days is of people creating industrial designs, blueprints, music, art, etc. from home or a small office. However, if these people can't upload their creations to a customer, they're going to be severely limited.

Another point that's interesting. A student in the city (with broadband) is going to have a distinct advantage over a student in the country (with dial-up Internet). Broadband will allow students to do research much more quickly. We are facing a danger where Internet access will start holding a lot of students back. This is very sad.

Great point, it limits communities. Most important it limits individuals ability to abtain information. The key to a free and capitalist society, is to allow the flow of information to the masses. The highspeed internet allows individuals to abtain information to make their own decisions.A great example is this blog.Keep up the great work.