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Comment by 8rian | Hacker News Reader

Rural areas rely on dial up internet

How many rural areas still use dialup but don't have access to cellular yet?

My grand parents do not get celluar where they live in very remote Montana. Apparently ether Verizon/AT&T (i can't remember which) has been promising them Celluar/Cable service for over 5 years now, and has never come through with it.

Honestly i think the only reason they even pay for AOL is because they use it to keep in touch with relatives via email.

Sadly every cellular map I've seen has a big black hole with is Wyoming/Montana. I feel for your grandparents, beautiful country but no connectivity.

Sounds like an opportunity for someone to come along and create a new network based on open source mobile stuff.

http://osmocom.org/

"Open source mobile stuff." - Good plan, sounds well thought out, sign me up.

If the CCC can do it every year, Burning Man can do it, Niue can do it, an island off Nicaragua can do it, then the middle of the USA can too.

http://wiki.rhizomatica.org/index.php/Rhizomatica_GSM http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Building-a-GSM-network... http://itp.junglebrains.com/setting-up-your-own-cellular-net...

And it would, except that Charter communications owns rights to the cellular spectrum there. So once such a system were in place Charter would no doubt come in and take it away from you and then operate it at a profit if they could.

A lot. Most of the upper midwest lacks cellular coverage. You need to drive to the top of a hill to even hit a gsm signal at one bar. The old analog signals were better but they're gone now.

> Most of the upper midwest lacks cellular coverage.

What now? This simply isn't true.

Its spotty at best, when you live in an area with hills all over, LTE/gsm is not your friend.

Verizon and AT&T have LTE coverage over most of the Midwest.

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