• by Tom Hespos , August 1, 2006

My annual "off the grid" vacation last week took me to Down East Maine, where I was reminded that not everyone in the country has the same communications standard.

Every summer, for a week or two, I visit a tiny island in the middle of a lake in a small Maine town about an hour from the Canadian border. Communications are spotty. Last year, I couldn't get a cellular signal from the island, but I could get a signal on the mainland where we launch our boat to get to the island. This year, after I switched mobile providers, the situation was flip-flopped. I think a few new cell towers must have gone up. I could get a weak signal on the island, but not on the mainland until I drove south for about 30 minutes toward a major town.

Last year, I had a client emergency and needed to visit a small ISP in town, so I could plug into their router and get high-speed access for a few hours. Someone stuck for access in suburban Long Island where I live might wardrive slowly around town looking for an unprotected wireless network, right? Not in rural Maine. You'd be driving around for hours and you'd find almost nothing.

Thankfully, this year there were no major client emergencies and I managed to go 10 days without touching my computer. It's good for the soul.

But the lack of access is not good for business or for folks up there who want to be connected. I noticed that the The Bangor Daily News was running a multi-part series on broadband in the area, and what is happening to businesses that have an increasing need for fatter pipes.

This is a big problem in an area of the country where sometimes bringing in the most basic of utilities to your home (like electricity, sewer lines or cable TV) can be either cost-prohibitive or simply a logistical nightmare.

So, what does the average Joe in the area do when he needs access to the Internet? Most of the people I spoke to used dial-up. A few others occasionally used data services through their mobile provider, as spotty as the reception might be. Some went to the local library. Most people I talked to had no idea what a cable modem was.

Not only is this annual vacation a reminder of the value of going off the grid for a few days, but it's also a reminder that major media markets like New York are ivory towers with respect to Internet access. Heck, if you want to bring a leased line like a T1 or T3 into your Manhattan apartment, a number of companies would jump over each other to help you get that done. In places like rural Maine, there's often no realistic option for broadband or high-speed access at home.

It's important to remember that the next time you're developing the next big thing to hit streaming video. Sure, it might be cool, but there are a lot of people out there who are on slower connections, for whom cable modems or DSL connections aren't even an option. They can't necessarily see your video, and if they do manage to see it, they probably don't want it bogging down their already-slow connection. For as much value as the latest rich media technology brings, there's a lot more value in "low-fi" marketing online--fulfilling informational needs of customers and connecting people. It would be wise to remember that.