Louise Rath: Snowfall absorbs sound. Making wintry days in Central New York that much quieter, but not at Elly’s acres farm.
John Lemondes: This was something I always wanted to do.
Louise: Retired Army Colonel John Lemondes served for 27 years, including duty in the Gulf War and Afghanistan. But eight years ago, he knew it was time to bring his family home to Central New York.
John: You know, and you never know, every day, every day is different. My life’s a lot safer now. And I’m very thankful for that.
Louise: But with this newfound comfort, the family found more silence than snowfall could ever create.
John: Here we are 14 miles from Syracuse, and we’re in, you know, 1990s era technology.
Louise: If they were going to keep their children up to speed in the classroom and successfully start their business, they desperately needed internet access.
Martha Lemondes: My daughter would come home and say, Mom, I need to do this research online. I’m like, Okay, well, you have a half an hour because we don’t have enough minutes.
Louise: But they’re not alone.
John: Excuse me.
Louise: There are hundreds of thousands of households in New York State and millions more in America that are quite literally disconnected.
John: This is a neighbor’s property right here.
Louise: Data from the US Census and the FCC says virtually all New Yorkers have the framework for broadband. But even though it’s available to everyone, almost one in seven New Yorkers who could have broadband, don’t. But yet, the Lemondes family wasn’t always part of this statistic.
Martha: So I knew something was up. And they said you’ve been approved for your street and it’s not going to cost you anything.
Louise: And on cold snowy days, just like this one here in Central New York, the access to internet is that much more important. Kids could have homework to do. They could have their classes moved online. And there are still many communities across America that don’t have this bandwidth to send their kids to school, when school is closed.
Martha: If we hadn’t had Internet access with COVID, my kids would not have been able to do remote school.
Louise: If COVID taught state lawmakers one thing, it was that we all needed access to broadband internet.
John: You’d be hard pressed to find anybody either in the assembly, the legislature, US Congress, US Senate. I think that doesn’t understand the importance and the magnitude of this.
John: Nobody’s in labor.
Louise: Yes. In 2021. John was sworn in as a member of the New York State Assembly. Now he’s bringing his experience with rural broadband to this year state agenda. Just last month, Governor Hochul announced a $1 billion connect all initiative to bring broadband to all New Yorkers.
John: And so I think that a lot of bills have come through. It’s a topic of discussion every week and every month and we are trying to do everything we can.
John: All the little ones have a heat lamp.
Louise: Everything he can to ensure no one else finds the same silence he found eight years ago and his humble Lafayette home, Louise Rath N-C-C news
