OK ...here goes!! I just got back from Belgium visiting the family for the first time since 2001.
Already in 2001 when we were going along the highway from Brussels to the eastern city of Liege with the car radio turned off, the radio suddenly turned itself on and gave us a traffic accident update on the roadway ahead ...now THAT is useful. In 2001 the cellular service had some spots where signals were lacking; now in 2008 we went to every backwater village there is and my fone was always pegged at 5 bars; moreover, since I only have a RazrV3 and it doesn't have high speed net, I didn't use the net much, but I did get GPRS via the WAP browser reliably everywhere. When we arrived, our family needed only use "teletext" to look at the arrival times for flights at Brussels International Airport in Zaventem. Most people there had their cell phones (they call them GSMs or simply "G"). Coin phones are a thing of the past, but phones were seen on the street here&there which worked with debit cards. Much of the communication network is quite visible in the countryside, however. Cell towers are another blight on the gorgeous countryside together with "aeoliennes" (wind turbines) that are turning up there in great numbers (apparently the country with the most currently is Germany). And, of course, the nuclear electric generating reactor at Tihange dominates the horizon from many locales with the plumes created; the price we pay for energy hungry life!! -----Original Message----- From: Rev. Stewart Marshall [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2008 3:13 PM Subject: Re: US is access loser 1.) If you are trying too bury it you are stupid. Of course you cant bury it in urban areas that does not make sense. Pole to pole is much faster and easier. (In some urban areas they set up underground conduits where it is much easier and much better to do underground.) 2.) Broadband access among rural folks still sucks. One of my members that lives not 2 miles from my house has to resort to satellite to get broadband access. Cable does not serve her house nor does DSL. Go out west where many folks have no access to broadband service except for satellite. Stewart At 01:40 PM 6/29/2008, you wrote: >This is such silly logic that it is hard to respond. > >Compare the difficulty of burying fiber in an urban area to doing the >same in a rural area. In the city they are lucky to bury a couple >hundred feet in a day. In rural areas the speed of the trencher is many >miles per day. The US failure has nothing to do with population >density. > >Taken another way. If your argument were true, why does broadband in US >urban areas still suck? Rev. Stewart A. Marshall mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Prince of Peace www.princeofpeaceozark.org Ozark, AL SL 82 ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** ************************************************************************* ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
