Sexagenarian brings DIY high speed internet to rural Virginia

Self-sufficiency is not just a comfort, but also a matter of pride. What follows here is not just a testimonial to technological self-sufficiency but also the virtue of perseverance and persistence. So when an average citizen single-handedly manages to bring high speed internet to a village in West Virginia, accolades go to the vision as well as the effort.

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Dennis Hunt, a sexagenarian from Appomattox VA, which lacked high speed internet due to it being far from the main city, felt that the people living in rural areas deserve high speed internet as much as the city dwellers. Out of this notion was born the vision of his own company as the local internet service provider and he did it all on his own, paying from his own pocket to start the basic structure and toiling hard at the age of 60 plus since he couldn’t afford technicians. He carried gasoline one and a half miles every day to run generator which powered the transmission tower which in turn was on a steep tower 190 feet tall, which he climbed by himself since technicians are too expensive. He even installed solar panels as an alternate energy source for the generator, again all by himself.

The tools and parts of each connection he installs are about 300 dollars per connection and at the beginning he charged around 200 dollars, thought now he upped it to 295 which just amounts to the making and component charges. He hopes to derive some profit from the modest monthly charges he levies, he says. Currently, he is competing with AT&T and the U.S, Cellular, both of which are dial up and refuse to provide broadband connection since the village is too far from the main city. It, in turn, gets Hunt his customers, who are willing to pay for faster internet.

Hunt’s Network is using two towers , one that he built and the other erected by MBC- the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative which is a Non Profit organization established to promote socio-economic development by deploying a world class fiber optic backbone network. MBC laid a fiber optic cable to Appomattox.

Tad Deriso, MBC's president and chief executive officer said Hunt is doing exactly what MBC always envisioned the cooperative would help make happen: The deployment of high-speed Internet to rural Virginia.

Source: DesertNews