Rural Expansion
Last week, my husband and I purchased rural property in Georgia. We now own a two acre lot on Lake Sinclair and a ten percent share in a large tract of hunting land. The hunting land is a great deal for my husband, who previously had to pay for expensive yearly memberships into a hunting club in order to hunt on private land. This property is owned by a corporation made up of only ten people (now, including my husband), who make the rules and control what happens with the land. But, unlike a traditional hunting club, the ten shareholders own the land as an investment and can sell the shares at a later date if they so desire.
The lake lot is adjacent to the hunting land, but completely separate from the corporation which controls the hunting property. We are free to do what we want with it. The lot came with a travel trailer with a roof and deck addition as well as a jet ski, but is otherwise pretty much in its natural state. A family friend lives on the adjoining lot on one side.
Net Negative
The area is so rural, however, that the only options for high-speed internet are satellite, and… well, that’s pretty much it! For now, our next-door friends are nice enough to let us leech off their satellite connection when we are there, but it is pure torture compared to our modest DSL connection at home. And, their satellite connection has data caps, so bumming off our friends won’t be acceptable as a long-term solution. But this geek needs her internet!
Having been down the satellite internet road before, I am not looking forward to doing that again; especially for a place that we’re not going to be utilizing on a full-time basis. My dumb phone seemed to get decent coverage there, so a cellular internet connection is something I’m going to have to look into. The investigation into rural high-speed options will be an interesting journey, and I’m open to hearing any suggestions in the comments.
A funny thing happened on the way…
On our route to this property, we pass several signs along the way declaring, “Georgia’s High Tech Corridor.” My husband and I found this most perplexing, since the first of these signs stands in front of an old, abandoned building, and all the other signs we saw had backgrounds consisting of forest and farmland. If this is the high tech corridor of Georgia, that is a pretty sad state of affairs.
I was one happy geek to get back home to my 3 meg DSL connection after four days of HughesNet.
