What does it take to capture people's imaqinations

[oneoff]

Maybe its time to change gears and talk about positive moves that just might develop into real forward movement. Take the Town of Oxbow Council for instance. They are reported to have purchased iPads for all councillors; and will be used for such tasks as downloading council minutes and all forms of council business.
Of course the taxpayers dollars fund them 100%. Fine; now what in the line of ehanced communications could a council do for the ratepayers who have funded these remarkable devices.
It comes to mind that any council (Town, city or RM) could decide that within the Municioal act they are charged with supplying police and protective services, water supply; sewer; road infrastructure, libraries etc.and yes even can be involved in communication services.
Now it just happens that the tecnology for municipal Wi-Fi (operating on exactly the same licence-free frequency as everyone's iPad, smartphone (Wi-Fi enabled); computer network card; Wii; Blu-Ray player and Smart TV has been around and evolving since at least the last decade. On the back side of that new iPad is a pretty powerful camera; and the router in that town office is hooked up to facebook; a town web page and high speed internet services and 4G phone service all interconnected and in use.
And on top of that; the very same Wi-Fi (or more commonly called Muni-Fi when cities and municipalities create a network for all kinds of users including the public) is available for next to a song.

For instance; there are a few private LAN networks in Sask and around the world that are using reasonably priced commercial equipment on a 7 mile radius and streaming US Netflix, Hulu Plus, VOIP, web surfing galore (potentially in everyone's back 40 acres) and it works like a charm; and is capable of serving hundreds if not thousands of users. What I am saying is that with line of sight conditions (or whatever 4 watts of 2.4GHz microwaves will punch through) you can have megabytes of download speed and full 500K upload over a radius of easily 1/2 mile with very few nodes; and many concurrent users. It would take a $25 USB "range extender" that plugs into any USB port to communicate back to the Muni-Fi at these ranges.
Instead of spending $75,000 on half the cost of a town library; there would be enough money to provide an e-Book reader (or better still a tablet computer with an embeded e-Reader to any one interested); and still have enough money to leverage the necessary gateway(s) and nodes and strategic towers or high structures for a whole municipality or town.
About the only matter that would be outstanding is twisting the arm or better still educating Sask Tel about making their "reseller" and "affiliate" programs really workable for rural areas.
And that is where council should exercise their powers and influences.

[oneoff]

Not one response to what was hoped would be a positive proposal that could have been used as a model to provide many rural areas with internet service that urban centers have taken for granted for years. And not one comment about it "being interesting":, how does it work, what equipment is needed, cost, how fast; and how can such distances be possible with WiFi.

Maybe ordinary ratepayers are such a dead weight on municipal officials that they have to ignore the electorate to get any thing done. For instance the municipal bylaw ammendment to allow up to 4 seperate residential sites per quarter section has not drawn one inquiry to the municipal office so far. What is the sense of advertising if no one gives a damn. And please don't anyone tell me that potentially converting an RM into 40 acre parcels; each with its own required access wouldn't be a significnt departure from present policy. I fail to see how an RM who can't/won't provide a passable road adjacent to dozens of horizontal wells, gas plants and amogst highest assessed land; can now handle building new roads and bus service to a host of new farm and rural residences
Go figure.....or not

[gregpet]

Shorter, condensed posts might capture peoples attention more.

[sumdumguy]

Yes Oneoff. 40 acre parcels will change the
landscape alot. I heard RM's are strapped for
cash but I heard they are buying 3 G ipads for all
their councillors and staff to take home.

[oneoff]

As long as a writer is not being repititious; and revealing some new information, I personally would read forever; if the topic was of interest. If people are not interested; then it is a lost cause writing one sentence; let alone trying to elaborate.
And with no substance to an article; one would be accused to not providing details.

Refusing to read a few paragraphs is usually just laziness or not liking the points being made.

[freewheat]

Shorter posts, sorry. I started reading
but soon quit. I am also not at all a
techno-geek, so 3G, 4G, ipod, ipad,
whatcha mathingy mean nothing to me. I
get along fine without anything but me
and my machinery in the fields.
Sometimes I use my phone.

Another thing, most guys are seeding and
have other stuff on their minds, and
finally, how many guys give a flying
snow goose what goes on at Oxbow, if you
aint from there. RM politics is as dry
as last years porridge to some of us.

I mean this nicely, but given the
content, the long post, the time of
year, don't be surprised when guys
aren't excited about stuff like this.

[oneoff]

Does the season make a difference in level of apathy?
The cell phone is not the ultimate answer to all of anyone's communication wants and needs.
It is evident that most people's priorities do not include much outside their personal spaces.
Examples of constructive actions (and same goes for downright negative behavior) can be contrasted and compared to one's own local situation.
The examples are only used to point out a general set of problems that appear to be spreading. And very few apparently want to recognize or talk about those problems.
First there must be an admission that that something isn't right; and I guess not many people are at that stage yet.

[freewheat]

Don't get me wrong, oneoff, the world is
going to crap, on that I agree. I detest
the way most things are going.

[oneoff]

Granted, not everyone is is a techno-geek". There may not even be one on your local council.
But I submit to everyone; before significant taxpayer dollars are spent on a project such as a library; I would hope those non "techno-geeks" would would bring themselves up to speed (or take the advice of "techno-geeks") so that they realize how current state of the art technology can deliver everything (and more) that a conventional library used to only be able to provide.

[checking]

hppt://www.IFpress.com/news/london/2012/05/10/19744236.html

Information superhighway often doesn't reach rural routes. Only about 45% of farms have high-speed access.

This, according to this article, is a huge problem for farmers running their business.

From my take of freewheat's response, this is no problem at all.

[freewheat]

I loved with dial up for several years. Do
I NEED high speed to farm? Not really, but
we have it now, thanks to yourlink. The
only thing about high speed is that, well,
it is not so annoying waiting on dialup.
Otherwise, I don't NEED it to farm.

What I said, is not what you guys think I
mean apparently. Guess what? We paid for
it ourselves.

[oneoff]

With respect; do people know what they are missing in rural internet service. First you must know what is available; what the possible uses are available now and will be in the near future; what bandwidth requirements are a minimum; what the cost is; are multiple users going to be able to be accomodated; usage caps and throtting to high volume users and so on.
And since it apparently turns off readers when you become more specific; it is indeed hard to discuss any workable solutions.
But salesmen just love potential customers who are overwhemed by so many unanswered questions.

[oneoff]

I well remember a fellow with a DOS based computer nearly 10 years ago. He had exactly the same argument even though windows was well established. Today we surely all agree that "windows" is absolutely essential; but guess wha;t we had better not totally throw out the "command prompt" just yet.

Similarly we absolutely need high speed internet; with its always on feature; doesn't tie up the phone lines; unlimited plans; vastly superior speeds etc. You just can't run the weaterbug station; stream live video in high definition; or even dream of surveillance and a low latency necessary to have a pleasant experience with internet telephone. And that latency is why satellite solutions will probably never make a good solution for telephone or two way local communications.

And please don't forget the fact that farmers are still poorly served by high speed internet service; and it won't be generally provided anytime soon. That problem reaches well beyond any single persons private solutions.
And that is the point I am trying to convey. Looks at the big problem of a general comparative failure of access to affordable widespread high speed internet that more urban people have had in abundance for years.