Rural Isolation a Challenge or Opportunity

With all of us asked to stay at home unless we absolutly HAVE to go out into the larger community internet access has become even more of a nessity rather than just a desired 'service'. I am sure many city folks will be saying 'duh, so what, just get hooked up' but for both those with low income and many rural folks its not that easy. One way such folks could work around such limitations was by going to their local library as the following clip from this TVO article outlines.

“Research the Kitchener library conducted in 2018 shows that one quarter of its community didn’t have access to home internet, Bach says. A 2017 Toronto Public Library survey found that, of 1,561 respondents at eight different public libraries in Ontario, 56 per cent used technology at the library and 46 per cent accessed the internet there. Sixty-three per cent of respondents who identified as low income were “more likely to find that library services gave them access to technology that they would not otherwise have had access to”; further, 68 per cent of respondents aged 55 and older said the library was their sole source of access to technology.”

Now whilst its great that the library's offer this service it does not help much in the current 'lock down' circumstances or to those far distant from such a facility, unlike those who think it is universally available and affordable the reality is that it is not. I cannot speak to those in more remote areas where it may be even more of a challenge but here in rural SW Ontario not that far from several good size towns and less that a half hours drive from a small city access can be hard to get for some of us. We generally don't have cable service out here so thats off the table all other services except for cell, which is not only very spotty but very ricy for any large volumes of data, is a line of sight connection of some kind. Trees, buildings, hills in the way of the nearest transmitter and you are out of luck, in my own case a 70 tower at several thousand dollars finally got me a decent hook up, plus of course the monthy fee that we all pay which runs away with several hundreds of dollars a year for a very modest 4 Mbs connection.

As a retired old fellow who relies heavily on the internet for both information and connecting with the outside world, as with this blog, as well as web connected email to friends and family world wide. I simply cannot imagine what folks who do not have this ability available as they 'shelter in place' are going through. So if you know someone who, like many of us, are reduced to avoiding contact outside of family at home but has no internet availability pick up the phone and chat with them once in a while, particularly if they live alone, are older and less resilient or are normally very outgoing.

As others have said let us look at this not so much as a challenge but as an encouragement to reconnect. Stay safe folks.