If online at all, they are crawling at dial-up speed. I connected at about 46K back in June, but that was just after the phone line (for which I waited 12 months) had been installed. Within days, Innovative Communications figured out that my line was being shared by two other families, and my speed dropped immediately to 24K.

Can you say "indigestion?"

But that's not to say the Internet's not here. Entrepreneurs are experimenting with wireless, and at least one office center and shopping mall has broadband, sourced from St. Thomas, a few miles across the Francis Drake channel. Locals deal with the phone company whose facilities are overtaxed with not enough voice line capacity. Some folks have installed DirectPC (DTV: news, chart, profile) Internet satellite connections, reporting slightly better than dial-up speeds.

The local real estate Multiple Listing Service is online, villa management companies market vacation rentals on hundreds of Web sites, bars and restaurants post menus and news.

There are two newspapers on the island. The St. John Tradewinds posts its issues in PDF format, while the St. John Sun-Times is under new ownership and has only a placeholder site.

Today, I have lunch with Shaun Pennington, publisher of the online Source newspapers, covering St. John, St. Thomas and St. Croix. Her bootstrapping effort was a finalist for an Online News Association community journalism award. Looking forward to an update on her efforts and I'll report tomorrow. The Source Online.

By: INTERNET DAILY