Published: November 09, 2009 06:50 am      

Jodee Taylor: Goodbye dial-up, hello world

I used to refer to myself as "The last surviving dial-up customer in America."

Because of where we live -- no cable, no DSL, no T1 line -- we've had dial-up Internet for the past 10 years.

It moved, on its best days, at a crawl.

I've been on mountaintops in Africa and lighthouses in the U.P. that had faster connections than mine.

I made many concessions to the connection, like setting up my e-mail to warn me when something bigger than 50k was coming in (I had the choice of skipping it), ignoring most sites on the Web (YouTube? Uh, no) and taking the show on the road.

I was a regular in the parking lot of the Fife Lake Public Library, where I'd piggyback off the signal to buy Tigers tickets, update software or download music. (A librarian I sat next to at a film festival movie one year assured me this was OK.) In fact, I had a regular round of Wi-Fi spots. We referred to this other world as "Broadband Land," or BBL.

That changed last month.

My husband found a workaround that involves a cell signal and what I call "the magic black box." It's basically a router about the size of a credit card with the most lovely green light emanating from it. It was apparently designed for commuters who can use it to get a signal when they're on the train from the country house to their city job or something fancy like that.

It's changed my life.

I'm an early riser as it is, but my mornings used to consist of waking up, getting online, getting the e-mail started coming in and going to a couple mandatory Web sites (newspapers, Facebook).

Then I'd walk away and find something else to do for 20 minutes. I'd throw in a load of laundry or tend to the birds or take a shower. When I came back to my computer, the sites may or may not be loaded, the e-mail may or may not have arrived.

Mostly, I just avoided things. There were sites I never went to because they'd take too long to load, what with their fancy graphics and videos. I would try to remember to look at them from work but then I'd get busy, well, working.

Rural broadband is one of those initiatives that's sometimes referred to as unnecessary pork. Most niche needs are -- if they don't affect you, personally, it's hard to understand the merits of them. I agree that spending money to make sure people in the country can get online in an expeditious manner seems frivolous when there are starving people in America, but I can also see the benefits.

Already, I'm feeling more educated. I rarely went to the BBC sites when I had dial-up because they were heavy on video, but now I'm a regular there, getting a major fix of international news as well as a foreign perspective on U.S. happenings.

I'm boosting the economy now that I can get to Amazon to order things and have them shipped to my son in Europe.

And I'm staying in touch with family and friends a lot more easily, now that I can see their pictures and follow their links.

Of course, the laundry doesn't get done as often. I'll get around to that eventually. Right after I go to one more site.

Jodee Taylor can be reached at jtaylor@record-eagle.com.