Late last year when we decided to move to Lone Oak, Texas, from Forney, a major consideration was availability of high-speed internet. In Forney we had gone exclusively to streaming television and cut our cost considerably. But with the move we knew that we would have to go back to satellite TV, and our internet service would probably be expensive and slow. We went back to Dish Network, and we have been happy to be able to record all of our favorite shows. However, our internet service has left a lot to be desired. We found that we could get WiFi from Cumbytel, a little local co-op that operates out of Cumby, Texas. But it isn’t really that fast, and it is very expensive.
When I worked as a Public Relations guy for the 2020 Census, I spent a lot of time talking to County Judges in rural Northeast Texas, and often they would voice the need in their county for high-speed internet. They would express that is hard to attract businesses to their county without connectivity. Starlink provided a ray of hope because with Elon Musk’s system of satellites you can get high speed internet almost anywhere, but the cost of truly high speeds is only affordable to businesses and out of reach for homeowners. However, you can get decent speed for a little over a hundred dollars a month.
We had heard rumors that fiber optic lines were being planned, but those rumors were paired with skepticism that high speed internet was probably in the distant future years away.
We opted to order Starlink and put down a $99 deposit knowing that the wait for delivery would be several months away. In the meantime, we bought a Verizon Jet Pack that had a cell phone number assigned to it, and we have been getting about 20gb of data for about $20 a month. That has been fine, though we can’t really stream movies and we always run out of data before we run out of month, and we have to almost do without for a few days while the speed is throttled way down. That has even caused a problem getting my column submitted sometimes.
Then our world changed. A couple of months ago we saw a crew running wires along Highway 69 between Lone Oak and Greenville. We didn’t know what it was they were running, and we didn’t ask. But about a month ago they started working off FM 513 and heading toward our house. I stopped and asked what they were doing, and they said they were running fiber optic lines that would be active in about two weeks.
I patiently waited for the two weeks, then I started calling Spectrum who had run the lines. I would get a recording that prompted me to input my zip code and, when I did, I would get a recording that said their service wasn’t available in my area. Then we saw Spectrum vans in our neighbors’ driveways, and I called again and asked to talk to a representative. Then I found out the recording had not been updated and our home was indeed ready to install high-speed internet.
Our 130-year-old home has seen a lot of landmark changes in communication. At some time in the early 20th century, it saw its first radio and experienced a family huddled around it in the dark watching a red light and listening to radio shows broadcast from distant places. About the same time, it saw its first telephone service. Then in the mid-20th century it saw its first black and white television and then a short while later its first color tv. In the 1980s or 90s it saw its first cell phone service. Then we moved in last December, and it saw its first satellite dish. But last Monday was probably an event that eclipsed all of the other technological innovations it had ever seen. That is the day it got high-speed internet for the first time.
The technician did a perfect job and ran the wire under the house instead of on an outside wall. The crews who had run the fiber optic line had told me they are working all the way to Texarkana. The technician who was here on Monday told me that right now they are working their way south to Terrell.
The prospects for Texas are indeed bright. The prospects for businesses in the rural areas, underserved by high-speed internet, cannot possibly be exaggerated.
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