Ryan wrote:

Over the last 6 years we have
had 17 outages lasting more than 1 hour each time, and they are all
in the last 3 years since a new company has taken over "rural"
service.

I spent a week setting up a computer system & training users in Sana'a,
Yemen. Losing power for 2-3 hours in the workday was normal. I heard
automatic weapons fire at night but never an emergency siren the whole week.
Broken sewage pipes, bribing policemen so your car would still be there when
you came back from the market, filth & poverty everywhere, cancelled
excursions because of kidnapping & worse threats... I was so happy to get
back to the good ol' U.S. of A!

17 outages in 3 years needs to be improved, I agree. My neighborhood goes
down so often my computers have UPS's. But my gratitude for our system is
much higher now. g

-- Mark