Dead zones: Cell, Internet service woes

Large areas of the county still can't receive cell service, reliable Internet.

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Every weekday, Mary Graham's teenage son makes the 30-minute drive from their home in Deerfield to Buffalo Gap High School. For much of the drive, Graham can't get hold of him, even if she wanted to, because he drives largely through a dead zonewhere cell phones can't receive a signal.

Jim Simpson drives 25 minutes to the Augusta County Library in Fishersville to send an email to relatives in Scotland because he can't get reliable Internet service at his home in Raphine.

Mary Ann Vessey, who lives six miles outside of Staunton in Mint Spring, has a hard time pushing out emails for work that need large file attachments, and has to go to her yard to get any kind of cell service.

Carol Fortune has a home in Deerfield, but chooses to live in Staunton, because of the communication limitations she would face in the far western reaches of Augusta County. She would like to move back someday, though.

For miles and miles in Deerfield, Raphine, Churchville and other pockets of Augusta County, you can look down at your cell phone and see "no service" displayed. Hundreds of people live in areas where they must still rely on landlines to make calls. Whether if it's because of safety concerns, limitations to jobs or just social inconveniences, the lack of cell service in areas of the county is a concern to many of its residents.

And although almost every location has some access to the Internet, the path to it can sometimes be difficult, involve lag or slower speeds and higher costs.

For many, home is in the middle of a dead zone.

Reaching for service in Raphine

According to a report by the Federal Communications Commission, about 38 percent of rural populations lacked broadband capabilities when they launched the Connect America Fund in 2010. Virginia was the eighth-lowest in the nation when it comes to accessto broadband services.

Jim McKelvie and Jim Simpson are neighbors who live near each other a few miles from the Rockbridge County line. Both have struggled with Internet and cell phone providers for years to get reliable service at their homes. They have been told to invest hundreds of dollars in antennas and signal boosters, but have also been told that it might not work.

They have asked providers to come out to test the signal in their area, and although they've been promised someone would, they never heard anything from them again, they said.

McKelvie has dial-up internet at his house, but Simpson doesn't. Neither have cell service.

"What is it that we want?" McKelvie said. "Available, reasonably priced Internet and cell service. Like everyone else."

Because of where they live, Verizon is the service they use for their landline phone. They said they were told by MGW that to receive cell service they had to be within 12 miles of a cell tower.

They live 13 miles away.

McKelvie and Simpson have attended meetings, researched their options and gotten neighbors involved. But so far it hasn't led to any improvements in their cell and internet capabilities.

One neighbor, a teacher at Blue Ridge Community College, has to go to McDonald's to get her email on the iPad she's been given to work on, Simpson said.

So if Simpson and McKelvie, and many others like them in different areas of the county, are too far from a cell tower, why doesn't MGW or Lumos or Verizon or Sprint put up another tower closer to where they are so they can have access to reliable cell and Internet service?

Because a cell tower is expensive, said Ryan Smith, vice president of Lingo Networks, owned by MGW.

A tower can cost anywhere from $50,000 to $125,000, depending on the strength. If there aren't many people living in a potential service area, is it worth it to put up a tower at all? If each person pays $50 a month for cell service, how many people does it take to make it worth it?

"Are we ever going to see the money back?" he said.

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The largest deadzones in the county include west of Churchville to Deerfield, parts of Mount Solon and Greenville, Smith said. But there are other pockets that aren't consistent either.

Susan Kesecker and her husband have a cabin along an isolated stretch of the Cacapon River in Hampshire County, West Virginia, and are able to get high-speed Internet there. However, at their home in Fort Defiance, about two and a half miles from the high school, they can't get a cell signal.

Sandie Terry, broadband program manger for the Center for Innovative Technology said the reason there are still parts of rural Virginia that can't get high speed internet and cell service is largely a business problem.

"How much is it going to cost to get that service out there and if we do, how many people are going to subscribe?" Terry said.

Not are there fewer potential customers in rural areas, there is also a lower adoption rate. Whether because of the cost, or relevance or because of lack of digital literacy, only about 50 to 70 percent of of people living in a rural area will adopt internet service if its available, Terry said.

All of these factors are known to the cable franchises that decide what areas they will expand into, she said.

Living in Deerfield

There is a farm just on the outskirts of Churchville going west. It is owned by the Currys and is the last stop before all cell service drops off.

For those who live beyond the Curry farm, it is their last chance to finish up a phone call. For that reason, cars pull over onto the wide shoulder of the road in front of the Curry farm to park and talk. All hours of the day and night, cars will line up, idling while drivers finish their calls because they know it'll be a while before they can talk again.

Mary Graham knows the farm well, utilizing its location on the edge of the deadzone when driving home after a day at work at Beverley Manor Middle School. She said it can often get busy between 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. in particular.

"I don't stop usually if another vehicle is already there," she said.

When Graham and her husband, Abbot, were first married and living in Deerfield, his hometown, they didn't have a phone. If they needed to make a call, they walked down the road to a pay phone and talked there.

"It was nice, quiet," Mary Graham said, and her husband nodded.

Now, many years later, the Grahams are still without certain technology. While they have a landline phone, they are unable to get cell service in and around their house.

The family has grown to four, including a 10-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old son. While they are able to get Internet through their landline, they are unable to use their cell phones at the house.

For Graham, safety is the No. 1 concern she has about living in an area without cell service, particularly when it comes to her teenage son, who began driving over the summer.

"If you're out and about and something happens, you have an accident, you have to walk to get any type of assistance," she said.

While her daughter was on the way to Beverley Manor Elementary for school one day, the bus driver passed a car that had flipped over. The bus driver back-tracked to a convenience store a few miles back where there was enough cell service to push out a call to police, Graham said.

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Just a pay phone

For many people in Deerfield, one of the most frustrating questions is public use of a cell tower that was put up about a year ago by a private company with the assistance of the county government.

Government help was given for the purpose of boosting emergency medical service signals, said Supervisor Marshall Pattie.

The county has a 10-year lease on the tower. A secondary use for the tower could be for Internet and cell service, but it is not currently being used for that.

Tim Fitzgerald, director of development for Augusta County, said they have tried to get cell and internet providers interested in offering a signal from the tower, but so far have been unsuccessful.

This issue came to a head in August when an F-15C "Eagle" crashed in the George Washington National Forest, just outside of Deerfield.

The subsequent massive and challenging search for the pilot revealed the limits of our technology. Search and rescue teams had to rely on radio to communicate and compasses to search as the forest's vast canopy prevents GPS signals from reaching their satellite destinations.

"I think that's when people really started talking about it," Graham said of Deerfield's technological limitations. "It started when the plane crash happened."

The Deerfield Volunteer Fire Department is just inside the Deerfield lines off of U.S. 250. The lack of cell service in town presents a unique set of challenges for them.

Professional firefighter Jacob Brunot relies solely on two-way radio contact when he's outside of the fire department, which has a boosted signal for cell phones that fades as you leave the building.

"Not having cell service is very limiting," Brunot said. "Communication is so vital to what we do."

Brunot said it's all about the training and knowing how to effectively and efficiently use and rely on radio signals for contact. "We use it to communicate with dispatch and other units and hospitals as well," he said.

Having cell service in Deerfield would be a benefit for citizens, Brunot said, along with the fire and rescue department.

Just down the road is the Deerfield Grocery owned by Eddie Shinaberry. Outside of the shop is a working pay phone.

Debbie Thompson has lived in Deerfield for 15 years and works at the store. For her, cell service is something she can take or leave. She has a cell phone that she generally puts 10 minutes a year on, using it only for emergencies when traveling. She recognizes that the lack of cell service can be a challenge for residents, though.

"It would be nice to have the option," Thompson said.

Small dead zone pockets

There are wide swaths of the county that can't receive cell service, plus pockets that are just spotty.

Sometimes, because of the makeup of the land with trees and hills blocking signals, one house is just outside of cell tower's reach while neighbors are within it. You don't have to be in the far reaches of Augusta County to find yourself without cell service.

David Henderson lives five miles outside of Staunton in Westview with his wife. He has satellite service from MGW that is spotty at best, he said.

"It's a frustrating thing," Henderson said. "To live relatively close to town and not have a signal."

When his service is working, it's "marginally acceptable," Henderson said. Videos will pause and buffer, calls will go in and out and downloading files is a tedious process.

"It creates a situation where we are excluded from being able to do some things," he said.

With initiatives such as the FCC's Connect America Fund, which was unveiled in 2010 as a plan to bring broadband access to millions of Americans, more consistent cell service and Internet connections may be coming to Augusta County in the future.

Sandie Terry feels that the future for rural areas and high speed Internet is in fixed wireless, which transmits a signal from tower to tower, reaching more homes for less money than laying cables to individual houses.

The problem with this solution is the burden for setting it up falls on the shoulders of the local governments, who would have to rent space on towers across a wide swath of land.

Terry has been speaking with Supervisor Pattie about fixed wireless for years.

"I think he understands it," she said. "But they have priorities."

But for now, hundreds of county residents face challenges each day as they struggle to work and live within dead zones.

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