HOW I SEE IT: Piedmont Broadband must restore service
Published: March 24, 2009
Updated: March 24, 2009
Piedmont Broadband, until the recent outage, has been providing my family with high-speed Internet access.
Living out here in rural Virginia, you know how difficult this extremely important utility can be to obtain. Dial-up and unreliable satellite connections just do not provide sufficient speeds and access to the Internet for the demands of today’s world. Piedmont Broadband is our only option, and the service should be restored and protected by the courts.
As we all know, people are now expected to have high-quality and high-speed Internet connections to: make everyday transactions, educate their children, access community information, obtain information about school closings and delays and, among all the other many uses for people like me, to stay employed.
I am a property owner in the town of Warrenton, and I reside in Culpeper County near Amissville. I am a systems analyst for a firm in Arlington, and I depend on my high-speed Internet connection to be able to work remotely and be available at all times to my user base.
Without this connection, I am finding my employment in jeopardy, and I am faced with the possibility of having to relocate my family to northern Virginia.
My child, Drake, attends Wakefield Country Day School in Flint Hill. He loves it there, but with the current outage, he is faced with the educational handicap of not having a high-speed connection to perform the research and tasks required of a modern education, and this puts him at a major disadvantage.
As any family does in the “tri-county area” of Amissville, my family spends the vast majority of our time and income within the three local counties of Culpeper, Rappahannock and Fauquier. We are property owners and taxpayers in two of the counties, and we were looking at possibly purchasing some property in the third. However, it is imperative for us to have access to modern technologies at our home in order for us to live here.
As of late, Piedmont Broadband has been experiencing a service outage that appears to be the result of some turbulence between shareholders. Our service is being hashed out within the court system; meanwhile, we are still experiencing an outage that is placing us in jeopardy.
The legal system should take into consideration people like me who use this essential service and have it restored immediately while any issues are worked out.
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Reader Reactions
Jerry I guess the answer to your assumption is that you are incorrect. I have two hard lines for telephone and celluar. Verizon and Comcast. For power While I have one provider I had a choice depending on the house I chose. I did investigate reliability before I chose where I lived. Oh I won’t mention the gas generator I have. I live on well and have two separate wells. Take the politcal statements out and we live by the same rules but people do MAKE their alternatives. Oh if you checked with my neighbors….I’m not the only one with adequate backup. That is my point. When hurricane Isabel struck I was without total power to the house but key infrastructure was avaialble I could shower cook light my house continue living. By living the kids didn’t have TV or internet all the time and actually read and communicated. I didn;‘t whine about my lack of forsight or the monopolies controlling my life, I chose a path to have adequate alternatives and if soemthing was crucial to me…. PLAN for it. As I mentioned I’m not alone. As for the US and it’s poor infrastructure. I feel you are very short sighted, I have traveled and worked in quite a few countries in Europe and Asia. There is no better place to live and while looking at one or two facets of the other countries, yes you are right there, but looking at the whole packages they offer taxes quality of life, stability, etc. There is no other country I want to live in. Feel free to go there yourself but I like what I have green grass and all. Oh by the way…. I work at a very high tech industry and it is based in Culpeper and it contributes heavily to the community here, it just doesn’t get any better than here ....at least for me. I love it. Sorry you think the US is weak in any aspect. Change it.
Ed: I would like to see Obama improve our infrastructure. Not only would it create jobs, but the US really needs it to be competitive in the world. Let’s hope your right!
Igotttagetalife: Thank you for volunteering in our schools, they can use all the help they can get. As for your points, I would not consider a tool that someone uses for their livelihood “dumb stuff”. I would also bet that a person in the hi-tech industry would have multiple vehicles (computers) to travel the roads (internet) much like you and your multiple cars and horses. But do you have a choice of electrical providers? Telephone carriers (hard line)? Gas providers? Water provider? NOPE!!!! These are all infrastructures that are or have been protected by law and subsidized at some point or another in order to provide access to all citizens… and it is high time that an important utility like high speed connections are given the same treatment. Take a look around the world and you will see that the US has poor penetration levels for this utility; we are being beaten by countries like Denmark, France, Korea, and even Canada. It’s time to wake up, the world is changing, and we all need this utility to be competitive and some of us need this utility to make a living. I also would not be so fast as to assume that the author “settled here” or “bought a home” here. Perhaps the author is a native that is trying to keep one of the remaining small family farms alive in the county by subsidizing it with his pay from a hi-tech job. Perhaps that farm is not served by more than one provider of broadband. (I know my only option is Satellite and it is not an option if you are trying to control devices remotely, nor is this available everywhere within the county, you need to have specific and unobstructed views to a certain point in the sky.) Is that the type of person that you want to lose from our community? Even if they are a transplant, I am assuming that they have a higher wage and education level simply because of the industry they work in, and I do not want to lose someone like that from our community because we are unable to provide them with the tools they need to make a living. Imagine a local wood worker. They depend on electricity to run their power tools to sell their product… without it they are out of work. The power goes out, and they complain, is that so different than the author? Would you tell the wood worker, too bad for you, you should have considered the possibility of not having power before living in our county? Do you tell them, “I can live by candle light and even though I do not make a living with the tools that run off the electricity, I could work with wood with hand tools if I wanted to, so you are dumb for complaining?” NOPE!!! You would feel that the electricity should be restored immediately so that they could get back to work. I feel that this line of thinking that modern infrastructure is not important and should not be equally accessible to all areas within the US is short sighted.
CALL OBAMA HE WILL CHANGE IT.YES HE CAN
Jerry- Letme make my point perfectly clear. The internet is a tool/utility for anyone. I use it but it isn’t critical for my livelyhood. What is critical for my livelyhood is a job. I selected my home with the consideration that I have to be at work (when on call) within an hour. To make sure that happens I have two cars I can use, a bike, several horse and oh wait yes I can walk. So to take Lane’s point to that level. There are numerous options in and outside town and if the internet is critical to your livelyhood…then pickout a suitable location based on the providers (note not provider, but providerS)that are available. if there is only one option and it is truly critical to access the internet that is suitable then perhaps the house with one provider isn’t the house to buy! For instance, in my area if I care to access the internet I can, use at least three different dial up providers all with access points or Points of Presences (POPs) in Culpeper. Now if Dial up isn’t what I prefer then I have the option of Comcast (ie. cable) or Verizon. either one. I live in the country fairly rural and if the lack of snow plows didn’t bother me then I might be concerned. I actually asked the realtor BEFORE I bought the house to give me the names and numbers of ALL the infrastructure I thought I would need. Something really funny, when you are buying a house realtors have all the information and provide it when you ask. I think Lane Summers is foolish not to have investigated allo of that before settling in an area. I am not a native to Culpeper or even Virginia, I moved here from Florida and couldn’t be happier. I volunteer at the schools here and laugh at those who complain about dumb stuff…like Lane
I for one feel for the author of this editorial. They are trying to bring money into our county, they earn a good living, and they are being hampered by a quarel that they have no control over. It seems they are making a plea to the courts to look past the quarel and reestablish their means of making a dollar. I also think that tele-working is part of the answer to the fuel crisis and I applaud them for attempting to take another car off the road.
Last Man Standing: I believe you do have a point, perhaps there is cable internet available, but I have tried Direcway and it is as miserable as dial up. I would doubt this is a cost issue and likely it is a serviceability issue. I also do not blame him for putting his kids in private school with the shape of the Culpeper County school system I would too if I had children. I work in the Hi-Tech industry and it is imperative for us to have high speed internet. Besides, I think a good point was implied that the rest of the world expectes everyone to have a good internet connection. Why can’t Culpeper County residents expect the same? Perhaps the courts do need to intervene.
El Debibble: Direcway is not an option for people in the Hi-Tech field, it has much too much latency to control devices remotely which I am assuming the author does.
Cul_peper: I live in Culpeper and I would defintely prefer having a taxpayer with a higher salary paying taxes in my county then to send them to Northern VA to pay taxes there. I think the point that they were trying to make is that squabbling in a court is causing havoc on a taxpayer that creates a revenue stream for all the local counties. As for the “moving to the Country” comment, how do you know that they did not live here already, I do, heck I was born here and I work in the Hi-Tech industry, and I expect modern infrastructure to be available to me as well. What is wrong with that? Do you still use a telegraph or carrier pigeon to communitcate because you live in the country? No you expect to have telephone service and I do not see any difference. As for the Satellite service, see above.
Igottagetalife: The internet is the tool that this person uses to make a living… are you suggesting that because they live in our County that modern infrastructure should not be available to them? Perhaps the government should take over the internet infrastructure and provide equal access to all users much like our roads and highways. I believe that this person also made the comment that without this basic service, they may lose their job, and that would not be good for anyone.
Owners of three pieces of property, and a child in private school and this person can not afford one of the other options for high speed internet access?
If it’s that important to you, there are other options out there, including sattelite internet.
Go to Direcway and get over yourself. Use the money that you plan to use for all that property you are considering purchasing.
What does being a taxpayer in several counties have to do with availability of Internet service, and a court squabble among shareholders in a private company? I guess when you moved to the country, you thought all the ammenities of living in Northern Virginia came with it. Wrong!!!! Maybe you need to invest in a satellite Internet service, or possibly move if that is what it takes.
THis is a joke right? People losing jobs, close to a depression, and this person is worried about the internet?.... Please, go to the library. If you chose to live in the country then it YOUR choice. It’s amazing what people expect… oh by the way I have dial up and except when I download large files then its fine. Unless your system isn’t configured properly. Much like a drivers license the internet isn’t a right it’s infrastructure and like a school or power company and neighbors you perform your due dilgence and come up with alternatives in case something changes. Get real and wake up.
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