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The article is unclear about mobile phone internet use. Most poor people I know have (at most times) cell phones with a data plan. This is sufficient for most b

The article is unclear about mobile phone internet use. Most poor people I know have (at most times) cell phones with a data plan. This is sufficient for most basic internet needs (eg billing, applying for jobs, gov’t assistance). Whether or not a wire goes to the house is less important.

brudgers 7y ago
In the Alabama Black Belt, there's usually cell signal along major roads and in its towns. On the numbered county roads, you might get a bar or two in some lucky spot. But mostly not. Usually there's just a lonesome line of small power poles out to the last homestead. Then nothing until the other side of the tree farm. The rural poverty of the Black Belt isn't an equitable thing with easy pay bills, computer using jobs, and government assistance. All those things are hard to do by design. The Black Belt was 1/2 shares share cropping when slavery was banned. And the cropping was cotton. You can't eat cotton. To get food you got to sell it to the only buyer around. And the buyers were the people who figured half of all your family produced was fair exchange for a tar paper shack and a loaned mule to make you more productive. Or rather you and your family. Mom pop and the little ones working the field year round.
kageneko 7y ago
I wouldn't bet on the availability of a data plan. I regularly drive through Alabama on the way to Florida (from Atlanta). One time, I took a wrong turn and ended up in a small town with absolutely no cell signal and closed roads everywhere. We stopped and asked a local for directions. This was SE of Dothan, AL, I think. And several times, Google Maps has routed me through areas where I no longer have a signal (south-central AL). Once when this happened, the road it wanted me to go on was closed and it couldn't download an update. I handled this one by just driving northish, knowing that I'd hit Montgomery eventually.
emodendroket 7y ago
The wording of the article suggests that these people have no internet access of any kind.

brudgers 7y ago

In the Alabama Black Belt, there's usually cell signal along major roads and in its towns. On the numbered county roads, you might get a bar or two in some lucky spot. But mostly not. Usually there's just a lonesome line of small power poles out to the last homestead. Then nothing until the other side of the tree farm. The rural poverty of the Black Belt isn't an equitable thing with easy pay bills, computer using jobs, and government assistance. All those things are hard to do by design. The Black Belt was 1/2 shares share cropping when slavery was banned. And the cropping was cotton. You can't eat cotton. To get food you got to sell it to the only buyer around. And the buyers were the people who figured half of all your family produced was fair exchange for a tar paper shack and a loaned mule to make you more productive. Or rather you and your family. Mom pop and the little ones working the field year round.

kageneko 7y ago

I wouldn't bet on the availability of a data plan. I regularly drive through Alabama on the way to Florida (from Atlanta). One time, I took a wrong turn and ended up in a small town with absolutely no cell signal and closed roads everywhere. We stopped and asked a local for directions. This was SE of Dothan, AL, I think. And several times, Google Maps has routed me through areas where I no longer have a signal (south-central AL). Once when this happened, the road it wanted me to go on was closed and it couldn't download an update. I handled this one by just driving northish, knowing that I'd hit Montgomery eventually.

emodendroket 7y ago

The wording of the article suggests that these people have no internet access of any kind.