Editor, Gazette-Journal:

The county is currently conducting a questionnaire about our broadband needs. What they should be asking about is our access.

Gloucester has two sources—cable and FiOS—both available in limited areas. If you can see corn, you may not have either. Verizon claims to offer 4G coverage; it, too, is limited at best. I, like many, use the hotspot on my phone for access. While better than my other choices, it is still only slightly better than dial-up. Gloucester, we have a problem.

Internet access is a necessity in this world. Affordable access (a term seldom used) is really the issue. A couple of years back, I and a few others fought with the board for another method—WiFi—and were stonewalled with false permitting issues until the provider left the area, never to deal with us again. The county then admitted that WiFi needed no permits, just like Hughes.net. WiFi was the closest low-cost method the folks living outside of current infrastruc...