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Date: July 10, 2020
I tried to find the very first commercial, where Candice Bergen introduces the technology of fiber optics in the early 80’s…before any common person had even heard of such a thing… Really wanted to share that one, because it’s the one commercial I remember…but I kept running into other things. My internet service has been really spotty as of late…Just last night, I tried to download something…at which point I was informed it would take an estimated 314 hours +, at the download rate it was currently at… For the past month or so, I’ve been spontaneously losing connection to the internet…or some websites would become inaccessible…or accessing them would be painfully slow…and you’d get a lot of “X is handshaking with X” kind of messages…as it took forever to actually get something to load up… I’ve suspected for a good while now, that my phone company [aka, ISP] was doing some type of major work on the lines… …What I didn’t expect, was for them to send me a brand new modem…and a promise that faster speeds are on their way [with no specifics, of course]… Upon visiting their blog…I about fell over, when I realized they are actually doing it!…They’re replacing the old phone lines with fiber optics…Holy crap, no way!… …only about 35 years later than they should have… I never expected this…the phone companies have refused to make this change, for decades…despite that we’ve wanted it for decades…particularly for the internet… …but I live very rural, out among the corn fields…and when you don’t live inside a city, town or village, you literally get overlooked when it comes to this sort of thing…It’s like the old cable TV issue…If you lived “to far” outside of town, it wasn’t available to you at all… They do have GB [“gigabits”?] speeds in the nearby community…but we’ve been stuck at less than 180 KB per second service, for years… I’ve been contemplating contacting the service that offers it…But I know we could not get it out here…not from them…I’ve wanted it, though. The new modem is hooked up…I’m accessing the internet through it…I’m just waiting for increased speeds…while still suffering through the agonizing slow works, and spells of “down” time… I’m actually really excited about this…as it can be a game changer, where it comes to sharing media… …but in the immediate moment…my internet access is really, really, really crap…most of the time… It’s frustrating…and I’m probably going to take a few days off…literally… I have no idea when we will be on the other side of this change…nor exactly what to expect…but I’m already paying pretty high for my internet access…plus, I’m getting bent over, to cover the cost of this new modem…So, I expect to experience absolutely no skimping, or being shuffled down to any lower speeds, by my ISP…When other people are getting to do it for twenty dollars a month…I also expect to be able to down load that 10 GB file, within a 20 minute time window…or whatever the norm is, on fiber optics. I really want this over with…I’m very tired of the crappy internet connection. According to their blog…it seems that GB speeds are the goal. This is very welcome…but the transition is hell. |
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Our Love Frontier
Our Love Frontier 
> My internet service has been really spotty as of late…Just last night, I tried to download something…at which point I was informed it would take an estimated 314 hours +, at the download rate it was currently at…
Ah, I got used to it by now. It no longer bothers me much.
It seems they’re having to disconnect and re-rout connections, while replacing lines…and service gets really ugly, while in the middle of that.
When the work is done, things should be greatly improved.
Is the cellphone network 3/4/5G an options? That’s what people tend to use in the sticks here.
As for fiber, I’ve seen people buy 10Gb and keep their old network (10 to 100 times slower!).
I think we’ve updated to 5G, at this point.
I know it’s an option, but I’ve got the only land line to the house now…and I kind of want to keep a land line…I don’t have enough disposable income to do the expensive cellphones.
Like you Steve, I live out in the sticks, and here in eastern Europe there is a choice of just two internet service providers, an antediluvian telephone company who take a fortnight to repair storm-damaged overhead lines particularly to cul-de-sac villages such as ours, and an entrepreneurial wireless service provider. I use the latter, but, if something goes wrong, it takes an age to have it put right and one can expect no refund for loss of service (take it or leave it attitude prevails: Soviet mentality).
Meanwhile in ‘not-so-backward’ Thailand, where I also spend a chunk of my year, fibre optics is the norm, service speeds are high, loss of service is communicated to customers in a timely way beforehand, things are put right within 24 hours if things go wrong, and refunds are available for loss of service. A totally different world.
I’m hoping things will become much smoother, after this change. 🙂