When Three Isn’t Enough: What Rural Connectivity Options Look Like in North Carolina – Community Broadband Bits Podcast 413

This week on the Community Broadband Bits podcast, Christopher talks to Tanna Greathouse, a Boone, North Carolina, resident operating an online business, Your Favorite Assistant, from home. Tanna shares her struggle with the lack of connectivity options in the area and what it means to have to sign up for three expensive, overlapping services — DSL, satellite, and mobile — for unreliable, slow, and high-latency Internet connections.

Tanna and Christopher talk about the struggle to perform even basic cloud-based productivity work and how this struggle has been amplified by the coronavirus pandemic. They talk about what things might look like if there were more local Internet choice and how the rise of telework will likely change how large and small businesses operate in the future.

We’ve covered North Carolina’s efforts at local Internet choice many times before. Find our “Why NC Broadband Matters” podcast series, co-produced with NC Broadband Matters, on the Community Broadband Bits podcast index. Episode topics include the homework gaptelehealth, and broadband mapping. Check out our other coverage of broadband in North Carolina.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show: please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

This show is 16 minutes long and can be played on this page or via iTunes or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript coming soon.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.

Subscribe to the Building Local Power podcast, also from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, on iTunes or Stitcher to catch more great conversations about local communities, concentration of corporate power, and how everyday people are taking control.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

Posted on Categories Uncategorized
Embed this Podcast on your Page with <iframe src="https://communitybroadbandbits.com/when-three-isnt-enough-what-rural-connectivity-options-look-like-in-north-carolina-community-broadband-bits-podcast-412/?share=true" scrolling="no" width="100%" height="138px" frameborder="0"></iframe>