"NEW YORK — In Sandwich, New Hampshire, a town of 1,200 best known as a setting for the movie “On Golden Pond,” broadband is scarce. Forget streaming Netflix, much less working or studying from home. Even the police department has trouble uploading its reports.
Julie Dolan, a 65-year-old retiree in Sandwich, has asthma. Her husband has high blood pressure. Dolan doubts her substandard home internet could manage a remote medical appointment, and these days no one wants to visit the doctor if they can help it. That leaves 19th-century technology -- her landline phone. “That is all I would have,” she says.
As schools, workplaces and public services shut down in the age of coronavirus, online connections are keeping Americans in touch with vital institutions and each other. But that’s not much of an option when fast internet service is hard to come by."
Tali Arbel and Michael Casey report for the Associated Press April 1, 2020.
