Umbee's Inet Connection Rant....

Okay, those of you who have played on live with me know the issues I have had over the years with my inet connection. Well I say years when I guess it is actually only 1 year and a few months, but it sure seems like it has been a long time fighting with that unreliable connection. About 4-5 months ago I upgraded to a 1 mbps download speed, which also was suppose to have a 1 mbps upload speed. Wow, I thought, I will be smoking’ now, WRONG. Yes there are times when I have real good speed at 1 – 1.5 mbps, but there are times when I have no connection at all. Very frustrating.

 

The problem I believe is due to the type of connection I have. It is a wireless high speed inet connection.  I have a small antenna on my house that points to a tower about ½ mile from my house. It has a good line of sight, so there are not any obstacles in the way to block the signal. However this tower is not the main tower. The main tower is in a town about 12 miles away. So the tower my antenna points to points to another tower 12 miles away. So not only do I have to worry about my tower going down, but I also if the other tower goes down as well. Not to mention how the weather can influence the signal. I will not even get into that. So I have been with the company for 4 years now, paying $65 to $75 per month for the service. A few weeks ago the bill was due, and my wife and I forgot to pay it. A stupid thing to do, but shit happens. Anyway, after 4 years of perfect on time bill pay, this small town locally owned company shut me off after 10 days of not paying. WHAT!! I was pissed! I called them, vented my frustration, after all I never even received a call or a cut off notice. 4 years times 12 months times $65 equals $3120 of on time payments. Bullshit to get shut off! That was the last straw.

 

Mind you, I live in BFE, so my options are limited. That very next week, I saw a small building about 4 blocks from my house that had a huge banner that said “AT&T/Yahoo High Speed Internet now available”, and I made the phone call. I was excited. I do not have any home phone service (rely on cell phones instead) or should I say didn’t. But I got a phone turned on, and am awaiting the equipment for the new DSL connection with 1.5 to 3.0 megs. I don’t know how great this service is going to be, but it surely can’t be as bad as what I have been dealing with over the last 4 years.

 

Stepping off soapbox!

 

umbee