Category Archives: Rural Tech

Doing It for Ourselves…

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(This is a follow up to an earlier post, http://www.geekinthecountry.com/?p=1267)

When Jared Mauch, who lives in rural Michigan, was told that the national internet service provider (ISP) in his county wanted to charge him $50,000 to connect to their broadband system, he decided to go a different route and build his own ISP. He did. Apparently, it wasn’t that hard or expensive to do.

Then his neighbors wanted to get connected. Sure, no problem. He eventually pushed broadband to 70 households in the area. He charges $55 for 100Mbps and $79 for 1Gbps speeds. (Are you getting those speeds for those prices? I’m certainly not.)

Now, by winning a competitive bid, he’s receiving $71 million to expand his service to 600 households through a Covid recovery grant. His little private company is becoming a vital local service. The kicker is that he did all this in his spare time. He has a full-time day job as a network architect.

I remember reading the Consumer Reports assessment of ISPs a couple of years ago. It gave them, on average, a rating of “D” almost across the board. Not one company scored an “A” and only one was at a “B”. It was a municipal broadband company out of Tennessee. A local ISP beat all of the major companies in terms of uptime, connectivity, and customer service. Again, it’s not that difficult. We’ve had this technology for 40 years. It’s not even close to rocket science.

Here’s my question: why are we paying such high prices for substandard service from companies who will not invest in the infrastructure needed to reach our houses and farms and who have notoriously terrible customer service? Why is every major, national ISP consistently this terrible to us?

We deserve better. Rural America deserves better.

A Woman in Information Technologies

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When I was born, a women could not take out a mortgage, open a bank account, or manage her investments in her own name. It wasn’t until I was 14 when that right was granted by the Supreme Court. It was not that long ago. It’s really only been within my generation that women have had a full set of rights mirroring those of men.

I started playing with computers when I was in my teens, owning my first one, a TI-99, when I was 17. (I still have it and it still works.) I learned Basic on it. When I went to college, there weren’t any decent computer science programs that interested me, so I got a music degree. When I finished, I sought out the latest computer science degree programs to see if circumstances had changed. They definitely had.

In 1984, microcomputers were all the rage and new degrees were being developed to meet the demand of programming these stand-alone machines. I set my sites (and fulfilled my requirements) to get into one of these programs. When I was ready, I sat down to talk with the director to give him my application.

He refused to take it. He said, “Women just don’t do those sort of things.”

They most certainly do! He was not open to persuasion, so I took a different road. First, I received my degree in journalism. Then, I learned absolutely everything I could about PCs, client-server systems, SQL, system administration, and web languages on my own. Since employers wanted demonstrable skills rather than just degrees, I found myself quite employable.

When I worked the help desk in one company, the other female employees and I discovered that the men spent a short time answering phones and were quickly assigned desk-side technician positions, and then system administration, while we spent years without any promotions. After questioning what was happening, we were told that we were too good with the customers to be moved into a higher position. We all quit wholesale. We later learned that the women in that department were making a third of what the men had made. This took place in the mid-1990s.

Instances of gender bias such as these are the reason why the ratio of women to men in IT is still so very lopsided. Women make up only 20-25% of computing jobs in our major IT companies, with only 18% obtaining computer science degrees. Yet, 74% of girls leaving high school and entering college want to go into IT. The culture is pushing them out. Why would you work in an environment that doesn’t want you there?

I still wanted to work in technology regardless of these experiences. It was just so fascinating. I’d had enough good experiences to understand the potential advancements that could be made in a truly inclusive environment. I pushed on, learned more, and found a better work culture.

Today, I just retired from a 36-year career in IT, mostly working as a technical writer. I’m so glad I stuck with it. The last decade and a half at Avanade have been the very best of times. I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world.

For women trying to break into IT or those already in it, keep pushing to be included. Point out any inequalities you see and work to help other women succeed. For the men in IT, educate yourselves to notice instances of exclusionary behavior. Are women being interrupted when they try to speak? Are their ideas not being acknowledged? Are they being excluded from collaborative sessions or social interactions?

Have you done the statistical data analysis to determine that women really are being paid equally for their contributions? If you do, you may just find the results will shock you.

Indigenous Tech

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Just a note before I jump into this post: I am not Indigenous. However, I believe that it is important that native peoples in the United States have the same access to the internet that most of the rest of us currently have.

In her brilliant book Network Sovereignty: Building the Internet across Indian Country, Marisa Elena Duarte postulates that as Indigenous people bring broadband to their native lands, they are going to change how technology is built, used and understood:

“… network backbones inspire compelling visions about the potential of digital technologies in Indian Country. It is while we are imagining those visions — talking about them, investing in them, designing pilot projects and start-ups, creating new aesthetic practices, wiring our government buildings and hosting web pages — that we must pay attention to what we are experiencing and thinking as we weave digital practices as Native peoples into our lives. Digital technology projects function in some sense like a mirror, reflecting back at us what we expect them to help us overcome, with the systems we design revealing our own methods for classifying, categorizing, and making sense of data and information. Through our uses of digital systems as Indigenous peoples, they become embedded with what we believe to be our Indigenous values.”

Essentially, as people become connected through digital means, those structures start to reflect the cultural knowledge and values of those participants. It starts to change how technology is used by us. As many native cultures have a deep understanding of long-term systemic change, they can see and adapt to change, sometimes, better than the Western culture surrounding them. A case in point is the Tribal Vulnerability Assessment Resources program, created by the University of Washington and 50 Native tribes. It espouses not only Western approaches to adapt to climate change but Indigenous ones as well.

This program helps tribes, whether they participated in its creation or not, access coordinated big data about climate change in their areas. It cuts nearly three years of research off of the planning time it takes to formulate an approach and a plan to deal with the changes that, we now know, are coming. This, along with the early understanding of climate change most tribes experience as they’ve watched changes on their land, may put them at the forefront of adapting to a changing world. (You can read more about this program in Hakai Magazine.)

Climate change may also drive greater adoption of broadband and mobile technologies throughout rural places, as people become more aware of needed instant information when disasters happen. The Camp Fire last summer showed this in sharp relief, when it was found that Verizon was, by default, throttling the data access of heavy users. Those users were the firefighters trying to save lives. Needless to say, the government of California was not happy about this. They are already bringing new systems online to counteract this possibility in the future.

As cultures, ancient or otherwise, start communicating through digital devices, it’s changing how all of our technological systems are being used. Another example of this is the explosion of genealogical research being done by lay people all over the world. I’ve seen this first hand, connecting with a history that I didn’t realize I was part of. I’ve found cousins I didn’t realize I had and, this next year, I plan to visit the site where my earliest ancestor was buried back in the 1400s. Without broadband, and the resources available to me because of it, I never would have learned any of this. It’s changed how I view my place in the world and, even, who I am.

This connectivity is giving people new ways to understand themselves, their own histories, and how they integrate with others. It’s also allowing them to influence the online world with different ideas. It’s crucial that we bring broadband to our rural places – all of them – especially Indian Country. Not only is it economically imperative, but could give us a fighting chance in a quickly changing world.

Consequences, Intended or Otherwise

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All politics aside, the fact remains that the trade war implemented by our federal government is having a disastrous effect on agricultural exports.

Our $14B in annual soybean sales to China has quickly fallen to $0 as of November of 2018. They’re now buying their soy from Brazil. With the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement going into effect today, our ability to sell beef, pork, wheat and soy to Japan is going to be hampered due to trade discounts of 12% to 28%, which other countries will have, but we won’t.

So, what happens to the farmers, wholesalers, transportation operators, marketers, etcetera, who grow, process, move and sell these commodities? What does this mean for farmers who are already financially stressed?  Will we see another wave of family farms and rural businesses going bankrupt? Wil farmland go fallow and get swallowed up for other purposes? How long before the damage becomes a permanent drop in our ability to export agricultural products?

The government shutdown is not helping. It’s here at a time when most farmers are trying to plan and budget for the whole of next year. Financing for farmers is usually determined right now, but the USDA is closed for business and no one knows when it will open again.

Once the lack of exports and governmental assistance strains our agriculture system, how does that effect our domestic food sales? Will farmers be able to switch to other markets or will the financial strain be too great? How can farmers plan for next year when they don’t know what is going to happen next week?

There are just too many unknowns at this point. In this environment, how do farmers become more insulated from these market whims? Can we bring back a more local-based farm economy? What would that require: local processing, new distribution methods, new venues for retail? What crops would work best for this? How will climate change figure into all these other changes?

There are too many questions and too few answers right now.

Feb. 23, 2019 – Here’s a quick addendum to this post:

While agriculture bankruptcy rates across the US have remained steady, farms who regularly export to other countries are feeling the squeeze of our current tariffs. Bankruptcies across the upper Midwest have doubled since last year and are expected to skyrocket this year. See the Star Tribune’s reporting on this.

Case Study

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Sometimes, I talk about using low tech and high tech together to create more sustainable food systems. What do I mean by this? The best illustration I’ve seen is a case study detailing one man’s use of both. See what you think: https://news.microsoft.com/features/global-garden-how-one-mans-vision-to-feed-his-family-blossomed-into-an-international-effort/?ocid=lock

A Whole New Farm

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I’ve been offline and not writing over the last few months because I’ve been in the process of buying a little place of my own. For the past 13 years, I’ve been renting a small 100-year-old house on my sister’s farm. It has afforded me the chance to become debt free and to save enough to buy exactly the place that I want. About a month ago, I found it, a small 6-acre farmette and I quickly put an offer on it. Tomorrow, I sign the papers and by Wednesday, it will be all mine.

Now I just have to make updates to it, move everything and then figure out how to move my blind horse. I also need to get him a friend. Oh, the monetary outlay!

I am excited and terrified all at once.

One thing that’s almost shocking is the change in broadband options. I’m just moving a small distance, but my broadband speed is going from 11 Mb to 110 Mb. And, it’s substantially cheaper! Yes, I’m changing companies.

It’s amazing how very patchwork our interest access is around the country. Within an hour’s drive of the main Microsoft campus, and Amazon’s Seattle multiplex, there are still those without broadband. Yet in some of the most remote towns scattered across the west, you’ll find pockets of exceptional internet speed. Small companies are stepping up to try to fill the gaps, but they are limited by so many issues. The big companies can’t maximize profits across larger distances, so they don’t try.

The poorest counties in the United States all have inadequate or non-existent broadband access. The only large-sized company aggressively building out broadband access in rural places is Frontier. They have consistently met their promises to bring connectivity to their new customers. I’m sorry to leave them, but they don’t provide service at my new house.

Oh, the things I’m going to do with 110 Mbs…

Net Neutrality: There’s More to the Story

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Last Thursday, the FCC voted on regulations to ensure the open internet or “net neutrality”. You’ll hear a lot about that in the next few weeks and months, much of it from those who really know very little about how the internet actually works. You’ll hear about what a catastrophe it’s going to be from some of your ISPs or, conversely, how it’s going to save us all. Neither, I believe is entirely true. It is a set of regulations to ensure that we get our internet content the same way we always have, free of bandwidth throttling or extraneous charges to content owners. It makes ISPs a utility, just like electricity.

From a rural broadband perspective, there was a much more important vote taken right beforehand. It is the Municipal Broadband ruling. This allows municipalities to provide internet services to underserved areas outside their city limits. Many states have set severe limits to what towns and public utility districts can provide, even in areas not served by an ISP. Nearly 30% of the United States does not currently have access to broadband and for-profit companies are not interested in serving those communities. Someone needs to step in.

I believe the New Yorker has some of the best writing on this subject. Enjoy!

Frugal Innovations

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TTED2echnology – it’s not for just the rich anymore. Ravi Nadjou’s TED talk on Creative problem-solving has some really innovative and very low-cost tools that we, in rural America, can use right now to get our small farms and business in the red. The two that I found quite fascinating are gThrive and Be-Bound.

gThrive is a system of soil monitoring that uses basic technology to provide an amazing amount of real-time data, at a much lower cost, to farmers. It let’s you know the nutrient levels of your soil so that you can properly correct for them, instead of over fertilizing. In drought-stricken areas, understanding the moisture content of your soils could help you conserve water. Where I live, the fields are saturated with flood waters for most of the winter. Knowing when the soils are dry enough for proper germination is critical to ensuring that seed is not wasted on soggy soil.

Be-Bound frees your phone (phablet or cell-enabled tablet) from those cell dead zones. Essentially, it lets you use a number of applications, such as Twitter, from almost anywhere in the world, even when there is very little cell or Wi-Fi service. What this means for those who travel, is that you won’t necessarily have to use Verizon to get in touch with people in rural places. You may be able to go with a $35 plan and add Be-Bound. (That’s my plan, anyway.) Calls won’t work through it but texting, mail, and Twitter do. It’s currently only available for Android phones, but they are developing it for other platforms. It’s available at the Google Play store.

 

Scam-o-rama

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With the many data breaches we’ve seen over the last year, people are concerned and they have a right to be. Taking just a few precautions, though, can really mitigate the impact these have on your pocket book.

  • Check your credit card statement frequently. That’s easy to do online.
  • Don’t use your debit card for purchases.
  • If you don’t have any impending loans you wish to take out, think about freezing your credit. This can be easily done through each of the credit agencies’ websites. It prevents anyone other than you from taking out a loan in your name. Just remember, you need your password in order to unfreeze your credit when you do apply for a loan.
  • Use long passwords with characters, numbers and letters in them. Change them once in awhile and don’t use the same one across multiple sites. That way if an account is hacked, none of the others will be.

Just like locking the doors on your home, these steps make your accounts unattractive to thieves. But none of this helps if you give them your keys. Thieves are always trying old-fashioned ways to get your information: stealing your postal mail or trying to get information from you over the phone. Protect your mail by using a locked mail box and picking up your mail daily. Don’t give information to callers you don’t know, no matter where they are from.

The phone scams are particularly stressing. The callers pretend to be the Microsoft Help Desk or the IRS or the State Department or a collection agency. The try to rattle you with some urgent emergency, telling you that you owe money or your computer has a virus or that your house will be seized. Don’t fall for it.

  • Government agencies don’t call you. They send you real, paper letters.
  • Microsoft will never call you. They have absolutely no way of knowing if you have a computer virus.
  • Collection agencies have to adhere to a set of rules. Consult the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Along with the federal rules, each state has different guidelines, so check them out.

In any of these cases, don’t let them intimidate you into giving them any personal information of any kind, not even your name. A coworker of mine found that a “collection agency” was repeatedly calling company phones lines on the off chance that they could get someone to give them personal information. The “agency” didn’t have the name of who they were trying to contact, but they did have lots of questions. They were scammers.

My coworker did the right thing. She told them to stop calling, that this was a business line and that, since they didn’t know who they were trying to contact, they were not allowed to call back. They kept calling back, leaving messages in the company voice mail over and over. So, she sent all the recordings to Legal.

If this happens to you, know your rights. Consult the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Tell anyone trying to collect funds that they must submit it to you in writing. If they can’t or won’t, they are not legitimate. Don’t let scammers scare you.

One snail mail scam I keep receiving is a request to renew my magazine subscriptions. The scammers always use the same return address: PO Box 2489, White City, OR 97503-0489. If you get this request in the mail, round file it. If you aren’t sure about your subscription, just call your magazine to make sure it’s good. They sent me a renewal notice for the local paper, to the tune of $499.95. Um…no. It is less than a tenth of that. They’re getting stupidly greedy

Be careful out there…

 

So many stories…so far behind…

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Yes, yes, I know. I’m about 5 or 6 entries behind in posting. I have many topics to cover and can’t get to finishing any of them just yet. Patience, patience…

A lot has happened. I’ve met some great people, encountered some beautiful farms, and dealt with tragedy in my neighborhood. I’ll tell all in the next few posts.

Oh, and there’s this little bit of news about the chaotic FCC plans for net neutrality…