Internet assembly

Age of the Geek Column: We're in the endgame now.
It feels like forever ago since the snappy ending of "Avengers: Infinity War." The entire universe, at least the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has been standing still as we await the dramatic conclusion of Marvel Studio's Phase 3.
As always, the biggest danger in these days before the film's release are spoilers. Apparently some details have already made their way onto the internet and of course there are those out there that relish in ruining the fun of others. Between "Avengers: Endgame" and "Game of Thrones," the internet is dark and full of spoilers, making it difficult to navigate the World Wide Web.
Twitter is practically a no-go zone. Facebook can be problematic, depending on how well you curate your friends. Anything with a comment section can potentially hold unwanted spoilers.
Spoilers can even appear in places you wouldn't expect. Nintendo's "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" recently received an update that allows for an elaborate stage builder. It was a pleasant surprise until somebody realized that they could use the stage builder to spell out spoilers, leaving them as a trap for unsuspecting players browsing for new maps.
Of course the obvious solution is to just avoid the internet for the next few days, but that is easier said than done.
We are far past the point of the internet being a luxury item. This was made abundantly clear to me at a recent school board meeting where, in a single night, a school district made the decision to transition their traditional phone system to an internet based service and phase out their local servers in favor of Google's cloud storage.
Imagine that. We used to need phone lines to use the internet. Now we need the internet to use the phone.
It really highlights how important internet access is in the 21st century, which in turn highlights how important an up-to-date internet infrastructure is.
Here in Iowa, internet access can vary wildly depending on where you live. Internet service providers have done an excellent job providing high speed internet to… some areas. Here in Hampton, my download and upload speeds are more than enough to handle the multitude of connections that my household demands. This town has the sweet spot of modern internet infrastructure and low population density that gives it the best internet I've experienced anywhere in the country.
Yet, just 30 minutes away, my mother has practically given up on getting a modern internet connection to her rural acreage. 2 MBs DSL speeds are not sufficient for 2019 bandwidth requirements and various wireless providers are a substitute for some, but geography can often get the better of them.
Mobile internet is becoming a viable option, particularly as unlimited data plans become more common. However, mobile internet is still a long way from replacing wired connections and there are still areas where 4G coverage is spotty at best.
This all comes back to the "last mile" problem. It would be nice if we could run dedicated fiber lines directly to everybody's house and while I'm sure construction workers would love such an initiative, it simply isn't feasible. The further you are from a population center, the more expensive it is to get everybody hooked up.
This isn't a new problem. It took 50 years and an executive order from President Roosevelt to get power to Iowa farms after electricity was popularized.
The issue with the internet is that it just won't stop getting better. Twenty years ago a 56K modem was all you needed. A decade ago DSL would serve you perfectly fine. Today cable is more than sufficient for most purposes. But ten years from now I imagine it will be hard to get by without fiber. In twenty years, who knows what we'll need.
There doesn't seem to be a good solution, but it's something that needs to be worked on. The more integral internet service becomes to our daily lives, the more access to high speed internet is going to be a factor in determining where people want to live and work. Especially work.
It may be easy to avoid "Avengers: Endgame" spoilers on an acreage with no broadband access or 4G coverage, but it's getting increasingly harder to do anything else.
Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and bought his Endgame tickets online.