Judy Rowe, chair of the newly-appointed Mathews County Broadband Advisory Board, said during the board’s first meeting on Monday that she had heard a man tell Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Montross) that when he had tried to apply for a federal grant to help provide his Native American community with high-speed internet access, he couldn’t complete the online application because he was on dial-up.
“You’re asking people without broadband to submit lengthy applications online,” said Rowe, recounting the man’s comments.
The story highlighted the dilemma with broadband access, which is so bad in parts of rural Virginia that many people are still using dial-up, a technology that at best allows speeds of up to 1.5 Mbps. That’s a far cry from the 20 Mbps of download and 10 Mbps of upload speed that the Mathews County Board of Supervisors has set as its goal for the entire county by 2022.
Rowe has been leading the charge for increased broadband access in Mathews...
To view the rest of this article, you must log in. If you do not have an account with us, please subscribe here.