The internet and I are as one. I am an addict, I admit it. My job depends on my access to it, I cannot restrain myself from cruising political blogs and cooking blogs and environmental blogs, I download books and read the news. I talk to friends and family via the internet. I can listen to WQXR in New York on the internet, for crying out loud. Or I could.
When we first arrived here abut 2 1/2 years ago, we were condemned to dial-up. It was hopelessly slow. We got a satellite dish which is not quite legal, but was the only alternative. Although still kind of slow, it was definitely better than dial-up. I mean dial-up is so dark ages it isn't funny. I was kind of adjusting to the satellite when we we got a call from Telmex, the massive telephone company owned by Carlos Slim which provides over 90%. of the landline service and 80% of the cell service in Mexico. "You, too, can have high speed internet! You, too, can sign up for Telmex's DSL service called Infinitum!" the lady said. "No we can't," we said. "We're too far from the whatever it is that you have to be near to get a DSL connection."
"No you're not!" she insisted. "We will speed deliver to you everything you need! Free trial! We'll pick it up if it doesn't work, but yes it will work!"
Sure enough, a day or so later, a little car from DHL pulled up and a man jumped out and handed us an Infinitum kit. Jim and I rushed inside and pulled off the wrapping, opened the box, sorted through the wires and modem and plugs and connection and installation disk. Jim got all the yellow and blue cables connected just right, and it didn't work.
We called Telmex back. "Nya, Nya," we said. "We told you so."
And I went back to satellite.
And then some months later, Telmex called again. "It won't work," we said. "Yes it will. Your colonia is listed as being within the range of the signal now."
"Been there, done that," we said.
"Just try it," they said. "This time, it'll work."
And the little car from DHL pulled up again.
And this time it worked. Not perfectly, but pretty well. Better than the satellite. It got cut off every few hours, sometimes a little more frequently, sometimes a little less, but I could put up with that. It downloaded so fast; I could watch YouTube, I could listen to music.
And so it went for quite awhile.
Then a couple of months ago some unknown force started cutting the telephone cable from the main road to our colonia to steel the copper wire from it. This evil force cut the wire four times. Worse than the loss of internet service of course was that the Colonia was cut off from emergency services if someone got sick or needed the fire department or the police. And we'd go for days without service, not just hours. And we really were stuck because cell phones don't really work here, either, unless you climb up to the capilla.
But this article is about my internet service, so let's get back to it.
Each time, the wire was reconnected and each time my internet connection was degraded a little bit. Finally, it got to the point where it was just on-again-off-again.
We called Telmex. And amazingly, they sent out a repairman the next day, a Saturday.
He was a very articulate and efficient repairman.
He had bad news, he said, "Malas noticias." I was outside the normal range for access to Infinitum. I restrained myself. I didn't jump up and down and yell. I said quite calmly that I knew that, but that it was TELMEX that had called and said we could have service and TELMEX that had insisted we could get it even though we thought we were outside the area.
He seemed to know this. But the problem was that, what with weather and the cuts to the phone line, the service had been degraded and Telmex wasn't interested in fixing it. Not for just the few people in the colonia who used it. Not profitable. But then people here have NO access to the internet to speak of.
He agreed. "It's too bad." He did manage to do something so that I get a service I can use. It goes off, but comes on quickly enough again. I'm not sure I will be able to download my work, though, when my next job comes. But that's not the real issue.
I started thinking about it.
There is an elementary school, a telesecundaria and a telebachillerato in our colonia as well as two schools for younger children. These kids have no connection to the internet. They are truly handicapped. This is no way to be trying to help poor people acquire the skills and the information they need to improve their lives. It's almost like being a school dropout.
For instance, a few days ago I posted a piece on the Fair for Children's and Young People's Books. In it, the governor of our state spoke eloquently on the importance of books. He said that because they were so important, all the libraries in the state would be open every day for the duration of the school holidays this summer. This is wonderful EXCEPT many kids have no access to libraries. There isn't one, for instance, in our Colonia. The libraries that exist often have very limited collections. And as far as I know, at least in our area, you can't check books out.
But if kids (and not just kids) had access to the internet, they could download books, they could learn skills, they could check out information on health, they could read books, they could do research, they could discover the world. AND they could play games and communicate far and wide. It has to be high-speed. None of this stuff works on dial-up.
I got irritated when I thought that Carlos Slim, today the world's second richest man with a fortune of SIXTY BILLION DOLLARS, who had made so much of his money off Telmex which provides 90% of the land line phone services in the country, hadn't seemed to do anything to spread the internet to all communities, rich and poor, urban and rural that had schools. I Googled Carlos Slim (here's a current picture by the way:)
He actually has been generous through various foundations. Ironically, a lot of his money has been given to education programs. He says he wants them to have a high impact. But I think maybe he doesn't have a familiarity with poorer areas or rural areas or how isolated they can be without the internet. I don't think he knows just what a resource it is and could be. I keep thinking, what a wonderful legacy, if he spread Infinitum throughout the country. Surely some of his wealth comes from the poor, if only from the pennies they pay to use public telephones. I know he cares about Mexico. Imagine: every colonia and pueblo with a secundaria and higher with high speed internet access.
And he could go one further: he could get his co-millionaires to donate those wonderful, cheap laptops that are now available to kids in rural areas especially.
Hey, Sr. Slim, are you listening?