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“In a world today where we can never go more than a minute or two without hearing the beep or the buzz of a technology device, it is the place you can go to get away from all of this,” West Virginia Department of Tourism Secretary Chelsea Ruby said. West Virginia state tourism officials promote this quirk of the area as the “ultimate digital detox.” Locals said that wireless Internet has become widespread in the past few years and that they had not faced any sanctions, despite rules that technically allow fining contraveners US$50.Įven before Wi-Fi’s proliferation, locals access Netflix or Facebook through hardwired connections, yet cell service has remained nonexistent under the rules. The zone imposes limits and oversight on radio waves in the almost 34,000km2 area that surround Green Bank, where restrictions are officially supposed to be tightest on electronic noise makers such as Wi-Fi routers. To protect the observatory’s work, as well as the operations of a nearby spy installation, the US government created the National Radio Quiet Zone in 1958. That is because it is home to the more than 60-year-old Green Bank Observatory, which requires radio silence to be able to peer deep into space to observe stars and black holes.