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CALLER: Well, what I wanted to say first is that I\u2019m a recent iPhone convert. After listening to you for however many years, you finally convinced me to get one, and I love it, I absolutely love it.<\/p>\nRUSH: Open Line Friday. Martha, Southwest Missouri. Welcome. Great to have you here.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Hi, Mr. Limbaugh. How are you today?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Doing well. Thank you, Martha.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, what I wanted to say first is that I\u2019m a recent iPhone convert. After listening to you for however many years, you finally convinced me to get one, and I love it, I absolutely love it.<\/p>\n
RUSH: What kind did you get?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, I went with a 6s \u2019cause I wasn\u2019t sure I was gonna love it, and so I thought, well, I\u2019ll go a step down and then if I love it, great, and then —<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah, you can always step up. That\u2019s a brilliant decision you made, so you do like it?<\/p>\n
CALLER: I do. I don\u2019t know everything about it, but I\u2019m loving it. But the real reason I\u2019m calling, I wanted to see what your thoughts were about the government involvement in improving rural internet access, because where I live it\u2019s kind of important to me. On the one hand I\u2019m thinking, yay. But on the other hand, if they\u2019d just butt out, I\u2019d probably already have it, you know? So I was just wondering what you thought about them getting involved and spending more money.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, the truth about this is that people\u2019s phone bills, for 30 years at least, have had a portion of their bill go to rural telephone service. It\u2019s been for decades.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yes.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Rural internet service fees have been added years ago. It\u2019s already happening. People\u2019s phone bills are already funding service for rural internet. Now, it\u2019s probably having trouble rolling out because who\u2019s behind it? The government. They collect the money but then spending it\u2019s a whole ‘nother matter.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Sure.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Do you not have adequate internet service where you live?<\/p>\n
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CALLER: Well, I\u2019m probably in a little bit of a unique situation. I do have it through my phone company. It\u2019s crummy. I supposedly get three megabytes per second, yippee, but I\u2019m right on the boundary of a smaller mom-and-pop kind of rural company, and I can see fiber from my front porch. And if my house were 200 yards to the north, I would already have fiber.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Oh, man, that would drive me — you can see giganet fiber —<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yes.<\/p>\n
RUSH: — 200 yards away, and you\u2019re stuck at three megabits a second?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yes.<\/p>\n
RUSH: I would go nuts. I would literally be going nuts.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, it\u2019s kind of become a project with me to see if I can get that.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Who\u2019s your provider now? How are you getting your internet, your Wi-Fi now?<\/p>\n
CALLER: My phone company. They are holding me hostage. Because that\u2019s my only choice for (unintelligible) local exchange, I guess, if you will. I had to educate myself a little bit on all this. And I tried to get them to release me so that I could connect to this neighboring phone company, but they essentially just said no.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Wait a minute, now. Hold it a minute. See, we\u2019re laboring with some difficulty here because we don\u2019t know the names of the company, and I can understand you might not want to irritate \u2019em, they\u2019ll cut you off. Right? That\u2019s what you\u2019re thinking?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, yeah.<\/p>\n
RUSH: So you don\u2019t want to mention it.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n
RUSH: So you\u2019ve got —<\/p>\n
CALLER: I don\u2019t know. My husband says I already have a big black mark by my name because I\u2019m that thorn in their side.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Don\u2019t worry about that.<\/p>\n
CALLER: I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Do you have a contract with them for a certain length of time that you can\u2019t break? Is that what it is?<\/p>\n
CALLER: No, no, no. It\u2019s because it\u2019s where we live you have your land lines —<\/p>\n
RUSH: Oh, they have a monopoly.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yes.<\/p>\n
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RUSH: You can only get service from them?<\/p>\n
CALLER: I\u2019m hostage from my — is it called? IOAC. Incumbent local exchange carrier. And I tried to get them to release me so that I could connect to the neighboring one, who has run fiber to the home, but they said, oh, no, we can\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Why can\u2019t they? Why won\u2019t they? What are they telling you? Why won\u2019t they?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Because they don\u2019t want to. They tried to confuse me with all the acronyms and legalese and all that nonsense, and so I became a little educated. But it boils down to the fact of the matter, they don\u2019t want to let me go. And my thoughts on the government involvement is if they just step back and look at some of these stupid regulations and maybe cut the internet —<\/p>\n
RUSH: This is where I am woefully inept. I would have to admit that I don\u2019t know where to tell anybody to call if it\u2019s the government that you need to reach. I just don\u2019t deal with \u2019em, so I\u2019m embarrassed to tell you that if you want to try to access — it already exists, the subsidizing of internet for rural areas. People have been paying a portion of their phone bill to this for months.<\/p>\n
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Algore ran for the Senate on this premise. It\u2019s been one of his big deals \u2019cause he invented the internet, remember? But he forgot to invent it as farms. So he came along and promoted this idea of rural internet service, and he wanted to get credit for bringing it to the rural areas in addition to the cities. So it\u2019s there. I just don\u2019t know who to tell you to call. (interruption) I don\u2019t know what? Yes, I know the FCC direct — yes.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know that they would know who to call. In the massive federal bureaucracy, who do you call to find out? It wouldn\u2019t be the Department of Commerce. They handle the National Weather Service. Maybe we can find out here, Martha, and as you continue to listen, if we come up with an answer, we\u2019ll pass it off. In the meantime, I\u2019m gonna be thinking about your situation. There has to be a way here. You\u2019re 200 yards away from giganet internet speeds, gigabit, 200 yards away from fiber. She can see it!<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: You know, I was thinking here about Martha, our caller who lives 200 yards from fiber gigabit internet service, and her cheap, low-speed phone company won\u2019t let her change. She doesn\u2019t know who to call. (sigh) When it comes to calling government to fix a problem, I don\u2019t have the slightest idea. I never do it. I just… I\u2019m at a total loss. I am of absolutely no value to you if you need to know where to call in government. So I reached out to people. You know what I found? I got a great answer.<\/p>\n
“This is exactly what your congressman\u2019s for. This is exactly what your representative is for or your senator. Call them! Call their office. This is exactly… I mean, if anybody knows about rural internet phone service, internet service from the federal government, this is the office to call. Every member of Congress has a bunch of district offices. There\u2019s gotta be one fairly near that fiber setting. Just call \u2019em up.” (interruption) Why are you frowning at me? You don\u2019t think that\u2019s a…? (interruption) I wouldn\u2019t either. “I\u2019m thinking to call the FCC.” No. “Do you call the FTC?” No. “Do you call the FAA?” No. “Do you call the White House?”<\/p>\n
No, no. “Do you call…?” I don\u2019t know who to call. I don\u2019t depend on \u2019em for anything. If anything goes wrong, the last thing I want to talk to is anybody there. Talk about nothing getting done. You talk about not even being able to get through to whoever you do need to get through to. But somebody said, “No, Rush, it\u2019s real simple. In fact, it\u2019s a great example of what they\u2019re for, your members of Congress. This is your local congressman. This is exactly who you call. Call his or her office.”<\/p>\n
So, Martha, do that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RUSH: I reached out to people. You know what I found? I got a great answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":243317,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n