Wired

Yesterday the last connections were made to the fiber optic line brought up our rural road by BRMEMC, our local electric cooperative. It's something that was only made possible by the broadband ring created by Balsam West, a venture financed in part by the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians to bring internet capability to an isolated part of the Appalachians. We've been watching the fiber optic coming, first along US 64/74 a couple years ago, then up NC 296 last spring, which made it possible for the school at Hiwassee Dam to be connected last summer. Now the power company is bringing the wire to homes like ours, where groups of neighbors have requested it, as we all did a few months ago. And it's finally here.

What an amazing thing.

What this means is that I can finally look at things like Google Earth and YouTube. It also means I'll be able to use sites like Fox News' just released Live News Cameras.com, where you can actually get live feeds from Fox's local stations around the country. Wow, isn't this something we could only dream about just a few years back?

It's been frustrating as a dialup user to see other folks' blogs and newspaper web sites littered with YouTube and other video links, knowing they won't work for me. Now they will. I hope I will refrain from linking too often to YouTube, although I can't guarantee never.