Wow. It seems like I've become quite the opinionated writer/ranter. But not yet a debater.
In this day and age where YouTube reigns the internet and Skype is a
verb, we see broadband connections getting fatter and fatter (for the
most part). For those who are not fortunate enough to live near a town,
have enough money/patience for satellite, and or other
financial/geographical reasons, we are stuck using the all-time hated
method of getting on the internet: dial-up.
I wanted to write this post mainly because AT&T is being their
stuck up, unknowning selves, at least on my phone line. About a two
years ago, AT&T (then SBC) said by some magic and pixie dust, we
could get DSL. Know, we thought we were out of range, which we are and
it is confirmed, but AT&T decided to let the order go all the way
through the system up to the point where they sent the equipment out to
us. About 5-7 days after we got the equipment, the local AT&T
office (St. Louis) called up and said, "We are sorry, but DSL is not
available at your location," click. That's it. Abrupt ending. To say
the least, I was mad. So we stuffed all the equipment back into the box
and continued on with our SBC dial-up account, thinking that we were
doomed to dial-up.
About a year ago, they once again said we could get DSL. So naturally
we ordered it and waited for the equipment. They called us up and said
that we had no chance of getting DSL and once again, that abrupt end.
So to say the least, the rest of my family was a little mad as well. We
never got the equipment, so at least kudos to them for stopping the
shipping.
Now, about a month ago. They once again said we could get DSL. The
third time. A AT&T rep on DSLReports gave me an employee referral
line to call up. Before I had a chance to call up, they retracted that
statement from their prequal site and it's like nothing happened. Now
about two days ago, they once again, for the FOURTH time, are saying
that we can get DSL. I am just really frustrated at them, that I'm not
even thinking of trying anymore. I know we are at 30,000+ feet, and DSL
only reaches about 18,000 feet. I know that for a fact, so don't call
me uninformed.
Now our only options for high-speed are wireless, satellite, and broadband-over-powerline; but they all have catches.
The wireless provider is a local one for our area and looks very
intriguing. The main catch; we'd have to raise a 50-60' tower to clear
our tree line to get line of sight. We live about 2.5 miles from the
wireless base, so we don't know if we could get a signal with N-LOS,
but my parents aren't willing to even get a site survey (free) to see
if they can "sniff" the antenna.
The next option is satellite. I really, really want to stay away from
this type of connection because I want to Skype without a whole second
of lag, I want to stream video at full speed for most of the day, not
only 15 minutes and then get my bandwidth cut into a fraction of what
it's rated and then possibly get it reduced to dial-up speeds for the
whole month. Plus the fact that all of them suck and cost a ridiculous
amount of money is just not even plausible.
Lastly is BPL. The catch here; the power company hasn't even formally
announced it. They were doing a "survey" to see if people would be
interested in it. That was posted in their newsletter for the
September-October issue. Nothing has been even mentioned since. I would
contact the company via email, but they don't even have a contact page
on their site except for phone calls, and I'd much rather just send
them an e-mail.
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