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4 x 4 Broadband
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Rugged broadband for rural areas
Out here in t'sticks, we have 4 x4 ambulances to reach those folk who fall ill on fells, farms, and out of t'way. No-one questions the fact we need 4x4 ambulances, nor do any of us query why the government can't pay for our air ambulances out of some tax or other. (We have tried!) We run bring and buy sales, and coffee mornings, and recycle our printer cartridges or mobile phones because it is a given - we need that ambulance. We also need 4x4 telecommunications so that said ambulance can find stricken 'customers'.In fact, until the Hamster had a 'speed kills' accident, in t'middle of nowhere, maybe none of you had asked yourself why such services were paid for through contributions from the public. Like the Lifeboats.
Maybe now it is time to.
So, whilst you are thinking about the basic 999 type services, maybe you would care to consider whether the last time you wandered out of the metropolis, you could actually get a mobile signal, or find a phone box.
We have to live without these things most of the time, so we have learned to survive and communicate, hence the existence of vitally important local skills, effective jungle drums, Community Access Networks, (CANs) who have JFDI etc.
Next time you hear a story about some out of the way place where some service you think you take for granted isn't available, ask yourself a few questions.
If a train fell off the tracks in central London, how long would it have taken to extract it? Isn't it a good thing that many of us Cumbrians have the basic skills to rebuild roads, drive over fells to avoid the works, and can manage to get our kids to school or do our shopping when one of our main roads is shut by media and plant? (That's heavy equipment if you weren't sure!).
Or that when the river floods we can shuttle our kids across to t'other side in a tractor bucket without some Health & Safety Executive turning up and saying "Nay, that'll nivver do".
Or that we have found ways to connect to the Net and continue to work, shop and play.
So, next time you come to t'Yorkshire Dales, or Cumbria and t'Lake District, mebbe tha'll put a few pennies in our collecting pots for t'services that tha teks for granted int' south so that when owt 'appens to thee, tha'll be tekken care of.
And tha'll nivver guess mebbe, but that includes broadband. Up here, we've put in yan helluva lot of non-BT connections - to our schools, our Universities, our villages, and market towns.
And if tha dissen ken why, tha'd better watch a reet historic bit of film abaht Wray, and t'flood, and t'telephone cable! It's called JFDI! Cos in London, yan wonders if it'd ivver happen like this or if tha'd all stand abaht wondering who would sort ya'all aht!
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