Yep, I still have a dial up for my internet access. I live in the sticks. There’s no cable TV/internet out here. No fiber optic lines. No cell/wireless service at my house. It’s one of the downsides of living in this beautiful area.
For years I said that dial up was my only option, knowing that in reality there was the option for satellite internet, if I was willing to pay the price. Which I wasn’t. Until recently.
I decided that I’d bite the bullet and trade some more of my hard-earned dollars for higher connection speed. Mind you, out here in the sticks, what counts as high speed is only 512K – slow to all you urbanites connecting at 3G+, but still almost 20x faster than my dial up, which averages about 28K.
This decision was reinforced by the fact that I was having phone problems. Noise on the line that’s merely annoying during a telephone conversation causes the more sensitive modem to kick off after a few seconds, if it can connect at all. So I made 2 calls – to the phone company to once again repair the ancient lines, and to the regional satellite internet provider.
The phone company’s now had two tries at it over two weeks, and my line is clear. For now.
The satellite provider, on the other hand, didn’t go so well. It seems Wild Blue is using all their bandwidth on current customers, and can’t connect new people until they gain more bandwidth, which I assume means they need to put up a new satellite.
So with the help of Baxter’s dad Ryan on his high speed connection, I did some research into Hughesnet, only to learn that their prices are higher and many of their policies (like customer satisfaction, cancellation, and usage limits) are very restrictive, and unacceptable to me.
I waited a few more days till I was at a high speed connection myself, and did a fair amount of surfing. I landed on one possibility after another. Every time I entered my home addy info, and every time I was told, “Sorry, this service is not available in your area. Please check back later.” The only exception was Hughesnet, my unacceptable option.
So here I sit on my dial up. At least I can connect for now, and can get back to posting.
Your turn: any ideas on how I can get a faster connection? PLEASE let me know!
