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When Eli Palmer learned WK&T would bring fiber internet to his home in Henry County, it wouldn\u2019t be a stretch to say he was the happiest 8-year-old on the planet \u2014 well, in West Tennessee, at least.<\/p>\nFiber internet takes connections to the next level for Henry County family<\/p>\n
When Eli Palmer learned WK&T would bring fiber internet to his home in Henry County, it wouldn\u2019t be a stretch to say he was the happiest 8-year-old on the planet \u2014 well, in West Tennessee, at least.<\/p>\n
WK&T announced in 2019 that it received a $2 million grant from the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development to bring fiber broadband to the area of Henry County that lies east of Highway 79 and west of Kentucky Lake.<\/p>\n
For the past four years, one of Eli\u2019s favorite pastimes has been playing the video survival game Fortnite with a handful of friends and with his cousin Cash, who introduced him to the game. But until last June, when WK&T finished routing its fiber broadband service to the Palmer family\u2019s home in the Elkhorn community, Eli\u2019s Fortnite experience was often frustrating.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe live out in the country in the middle of a cornfield, which we love,\u201d says Eli\u2019s mother, Allyson Palmer, who\u2019s an assistant principal at Rhea Elementary School in Paris. \u201cBut there were no internet companies that offered service at our address. We would turn our hot spot on and give Eli a 30-minute time limit on how long he could play. He had to tell his buddies that was all he was going to play, because it would suck the data out of our hot spots. That\u2019s how he played Fortnite for about four years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would hear how unfair it was, but he knew there was nothing we could do,\u201d she says. \u201cHe was old enough to understand it wasn\u2019t that we were choosing to not have good internet, it was that it was not offered. When WK&T extended internet to our community, he was 100% supportive of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eli did get a taste of the full Fortnite experience when he visited friends or relatives who had high-speed internet, but that just made it all the more frustrating to have to play using a mobile hot spot and his mother\u2019s iPad at his home. \u201cIt was pretty annoying, because sometimes I would be in a game and my mom made me have to get off before I could level up,\u201d Eli says, referring to earning Fortnight Battle Stars needed to advance to the next level.<\/p>\n
He did graduate from the iPad to a Nintendo Switch handheld console two summers ago, but without fiber internet he couldn\u2019t take advantage of all its features. Limited by the mobile hot spot, he couldn\u2019t use the microphone on his headset, instead having to use the chat function to communicate with other players. His gaming was also hampered by his connection\u2019s high lag time, measured as ping rate. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot easier now,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
The arrival of high-speed fiber internet to the Palmer home brought Eli a better ping rate, which represents the reaction time of the internet connection. A low ping rate provides an advantage when playing against others. \u201cIf your ping is better than theirs, then you can do it easier,\u201d Eli says. In addition to the all-important ping rate, Eli, now 10, is no longer subject to hot spot limits and gets to spend more time engaging in the game\u2019s signature \u201cBattle Royale\u201d mode with his Fortnite \u201csquad.\u201d \u201cNow, I can get home from school and play before sports practice,\u201d says the Paris Elementary fifth grader, who is a shortstop for the area\u2019s travel baseball team, the Paris Thunder. He also plays for the local recreational football and basketball teams.<\/p>\n
The arrival of WK&T fiber broadband in the Palmer home and the surrounding area has not only maximized Eli\u2019s gaming experience, it\u2019s made the working life of Bob Palmer, his dad, much more productive.<\/p>\n
Bob is the preaching minister at Sulphur Well Church of Christ, located about a half-mile from the Palmer residence. In fact, the Palmers enjoyed their first encounter with WK&T\u2019s fiber broadband when the church received the service in July 2020 in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak.
\nThe pandemic created a major hurdle for the church, Bob says. \u201cWe had satellite internet, and our speeds were such that livestreaming and uploading digital content for our people was basically an impossibility. I had to travel off-campus each week to a member\u2019s home who had high-speed internet just to be able to provide our people with digital resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
That situation changed in early summer 2020 when WK&T connected its fiber service to the church. \u201cIt radically changed what we could provide for our people,\u201d Bob says. \u201cWe began creating a lot more digital content, hosted virtual classes and worship services, and our youth ministers would host weekly group meetings over Zoom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once it was safe to resume meeting indoors, the church was able to host for the first time in its history a livestream option for members who chose to stay at home. \u201cWe are very grateful for all that WK&T has provided for us,\u201d Bob says. \u201cNot only did it put us in a position to better serve our people, but it has allowed us to dream about future ideas and offerings for our congregation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Content provided with permission from WK&T.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fiber internet takes connections to the next level for Henry County family When Eli Palmer learned WK&T would bring fiber internet to his home in Henry County, it wouldn\u2019t be a stretch to say he was the happiest 8-year-old on the planet \u2014 well, in West Tennessee, at least. WK&T announced in 2019 that it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":40781,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[304],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40780"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40780"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40783,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40780\/revisions\/40783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}