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Internet issues plague small businesses in Lamar
LAMAR, Dec 23, 2009 (The Messenger - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
During what should be a busy time of year, Susan Ard's business, Lamar Florist, is suffering because the town of Lamar lost its major Internet provider two weeks ago.
"The rest of the world thinks we're uncivilized because we can't get Internet," Ard said. "They never heard of anything like that."
Ard gets half of her supplies and 75 percent of her orders online. Even with the economic crisis, she had been pleased with the growth of her business since it opened November 2008.
On Nov. 23, though, the town, residents and area businesses received a letter from Pine Tree Cablevision that the company would cease operations Nov. 30.
The letter read: "We experienced many challenges recently and did everything possible to keep services active for all of our customers in your community. However, with the difficulty of securing additional credit with banks and tough competition from other video providers, we reached the point where it was fiscally impossible for Pine Tree Cablevision to continue operations."
The town completely lost Internet and cable services Dec. 10.
"I was in the middle of submitting reports to SLED (the State Law Enforcement Division) when it went down," Police Chief Charles Woodle said.
Woodle has been going home twice a day to check his work e-mails.
The town's front office was closed Monday because the town clerk couldn't upgrade the software necessary to process water bills.
Working with the Darlington County Administrator's Office and Darlington County Councilwoman Anne Warr, the town government began feeding off the county Internet service late Monday, but that doesn't solve the town's problem.
"We're extremely concerned about the businesses," said Victor Pizzuro, the town's economic development planning director and vice-chairman of the Greater Darlington Chamber of Commerce. "It's going to curb economic development; it's going to curb new job growth, it's going to hurt our existing businesses."
He and Mayor Bobby Hudson, who leaves office at the end of the month, have been talking with Verizon, Time Warner Cable, AT&T, Farmer's Telephone and other private companies to get broadband Internet re-established in the town, even if only temporarily.
"The town is doing everything it can to assist local and industrial businesses along with peripheral areas to correct the problem," Hudson said.
The town also partnered with the Greater Darlington Chamber of Commerce, Darlington County Economic Development Partnership and the county administrator's office.
Pizzuro, in addition, reached out to local, state and federal legislators for help. He started working on getting better service to Lamar three years ago.
Pine Tree drew its Internet from an AT&T fiber source but only used a T-1 line, which is the slowest broadband available. Then the company subdivided that source through the cable network to its customer base, so the quality was faster than dial-up but not by much.
Pine Tree provided subpar service, even by government standards. The federal minimum standard speed for broadband is 200KB per second, and Pine Tree gave its customers just 50KB per second -- one-quarter of the accepted minimum.
"This has become my paramount issue," Pizzuro said.
He visited Washington, D.C., in June with state Rep. Robert Q. Williams of Darlington to let the delegation know about Lamar's problem and give a preliminary analysis of the situation, not knowing what would happen just five months later.
Pizzuro took time out of his schedule while he visited family in Washington, D.C., last week, as well.
"The town works with businesses, and we work as a family," he said. "We're symbiotic."
Pizzuro filed for a $775,000 Community Connect grant through the U.S. Department of Agriculture to get wireless services down Main Street last March. The project, which he worked on with Woodle, would provide cameras downtown and a neighborhood watch program.
Working with Congressman John Spratt's office and U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham's office, Pizzuro has tried to get the town money through an appropriations request, an earmark. Even if approved, though, the funding wouldn't be headed to Lamar until 2011. He also contacted U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint's office.
"We're surrounded by broadband, but we don't have it," Pizzuro said.
Time Warner Cable can provide the package of cable, phone and broadband services but doesn't have infrastructure in town.
Pizzuro is constructing a package to paint the picture that it may be worth the investment for Time Warner or any other private company. In the five- to seven-mile radius around Lamar, there are about 7,500 people. Another big driver, the entire country club in the Governor's Run area is interested in part of the town.
Farmer's Telephone out of Kingstree feeds Lee County high-speed Internet. Lynchburg, a smaller community, has DSL service five times faster than Lamar did. The company is applying for stimulus grants to expand its services to a broader customer base to include Pamplico and Sardis among other rural areas. The town of Lamar may benefit from that.
To cope with the Internet quality and lack of service, industries along Interstate 20 have been purchasing individual T-1 connections, which are more expensive and cost-prohibitive for smaller industries.
Instead of in production, Don King spent his entire Wednesday morning dealing with Internet issues.
King, owner of King Industrial which manufactures metalworking fluids and employs three people, purchased new wireless service but had to move his office to the front of his building to get a good enough signal to go online. He said the connection was OK but intermittent. King said wireless is faster "but not in the town of Lamar." At his home near Interstate 20, he said the service is "smoking fast."
While he uses the Internet mostly for business e-mails, he pays 95 percent of his bills and all of his suppliers online.
"The issue I have is yesterday it took me four hours to make a payment online," King said. "This is a nightmare."
The Lamar Library remains unaffected because, as a county agency, its service is piped in wirelessly by the county.
"Our lifeblood is the Internet," Tony Skorput, owner of Skorput Rehabilitation & Wellness, said.
He uses the Internet for real-time billing and documentation as well as sending doctors patient updates.
"It's taking me an hour and a half longer," he said.
Skorput said he has looked into all the services available, some touting 1.5MB per second speed for a price of more than $230 per month.
For now and the immediate future, residents and businesses in Lamar are limited to satellite, wireless or dial-up options.
"It's frustrating and costly, and it stinks," Skorput said.
To see more of The Messenger or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.scnow.com/scp/community/messenger . Copyright (c) 2009, The
Messenger, Hartsville, S.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information
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