Internet Updates
Early in the pandemic we had someone from AT&T out to try to resolve some internet issues we had. When our DSL worked, it worked fine. The problem was that it had intermittent moments when it didn't work at all. That repair guy made some tweaks which improved things, but we still occasionally had intermittent problems. As the pandemic continue, the intermittency got worse, and I often had to resort to my phone's hot spot to work.
Eventually this grew intolerable, and I as burning my "unlimited" data by the end of each month just trying to do my job. M was uncomfortable with possibility that someone would have to enter the house to repair the DSL, but once we got boosted she was willing to consider it. I had the week of Thanksgiving off, so I took an hour (yes, a full hour) to call AT&T. Trouble-shooting the DSL over the phone didn't help any, and it turned out that upgrading to AT&T fiber was pretty much the same price as DSL we went ahead and scheduled the update.
On Wednesday, I took the day off to deal with the installation. I have to say that Mike the installation guy did a good job. He did end up having to come into the house to rewire the jack to handle fiber. In the process of that he found a issue with the wiring that probably contributed to the DSL challenges, which he corrected.
The upshot is that yesterday I went through a full day of work without having to drop to my hot spot even once. As a bonus, the internet is noticeably faster. When working, the DSL was fast enough for our purposes, but I must admit that the speed boost is nice.
The fiber connection is the latest in a series of internet connections.
- In high school, I occasionally used dial-up to connect to various BBSes, but I didn't do this very often, since this largely predated the public internet and most of what was available wasn't that interesting to me.
- In college, the CWRU network was absurdly faster. My computer had a Fore ATM card, which was the new standard my freshman year. I seem to recall that it went something like 155 Mbit/s, which is probably still the fastest pipe I've ever had at home.
- I know I had internet at my two Little Italy apartments, but I don't remember what. I think it might have been dial-up at the first one and DSL at the second, but who can remember?
- At my apartment in Coventry we stole wifi for 5-6 months and then got DSL when they finally locked down their connection. I transferred that DSL to my first apartment in Lakewood and then to my house.
M never had internet at her apartment in Cleveland and just used her phone.
Eventually this grew intolerable, and I as burning my "unlimited" data by the end of each month just trying to do my job. M was uncomfortable with possibility that someone would have to enter the house to repair the DSL, but once we got boosted she was willing to consider it. I had the week of Thanksgiving off, so I took an hour (yes, a full hour) to call AT&T. Trouble-shooting the DSL over the phone didn't help any, and it turned out that upgrading to AT&T fiber was pretty much the same price as DSL we went ahead and scheduled the update.
On Wednesday, I took the day off to deal with the installation. I have to say that Mike the installation guy did a good job. He did end up having to come into the house to rewire the jack to handle fiber. In the process of that he found a issue with the wiring that probably contributed to the DSL challenges, which he corrected.
The upshot is that yesterday I went through a full day of work without having to drop to my hot spot even once. As a bonus, the internet is noticeably faster. When working, the DSL was fast enough for our purposes, but I must admit that the speed boost is nice.
The fiber connection is the latest in a series of internet connections.
- In high school, I occasionally used dial-up to connect to various BBSes, but I didn't do this very often, since this largely predated the public internet and most of what was available wasn't that interesting to me.
- In college, the CWRU network was absurdly faster. My computer had a Fore ATM card, which was the new standard my freshman year. I seem to recall that it went something like 155 Mbit/s, which is probably still the fastest pipe I've ever had at home.
- I know I had internet at my two Little Italy apartments, but I don't remember what. I think it might have been dial-up at the first one and DSL at the second, but who can remember?
- At my apartment in Coventry we stole wifi for 5-6 months and then got DSL when they finally locked down their connection. I transferred that DSL to my first apartment in Lakewood and then to my house.
M never had internet at her apartment in Cleveland and just used her phone.