We've been frustrated with our AOL dialup for a long, long time. Have been trying to find a solution to that. AT&T doesn't have anything for us. Comcast does, but wants us to pay $700 to extend the line from the pole that is at the end of our driveway to our house. Nope. All of it is location, location, location. Somehow we're not in a good one. Technology-wise that is.
We bought a cheap little external modem when we bought the new computer in August. I should say Steve and Eric did this. I was at camp at the time. Anyway, we've had a lot of trouble connecting to dialup and staying connected. We've tried so many solutions. Finally I decided to install the AOL software on my netbook and use the modem with the netbook. After a few glitches we were successful. Worked fine that evening. The next morning, had the same problems connecting that we've had with the desktop. We'd figured it was a software conflict on the desktop but after having the same issues we figured it's probably a problem with the (cheap) modem. You get what you pay for, right?
So went to Best Buy yesterday to buy a better modem. While there, the salesman talked us into trying wireless broadband. The Verizon map showed we did have coverage. So we brought home this little gizmo, charged it up last night, and started monkeying with it today. I am using wireless broadband right now as I'm typing. Very rarely would dialup cooperate enough to get me onto this site, part of the reason I haven't blogged much lately. The signal indicator has mostly been red showing a weak signal. We've had either one or two out of the four bars.
Steve was trying to send some Goldwing pictures to some friends. Very slow there. But I was just as slow sending pictures from work to him. Plus there are file size limitations. He's just not sure that this is going to work. Biggest reason (I think) he's hesitant is that if we don't return it within the three day trial, we are locked into a two year contract.
Plusses in my opinion are that we are online without hassle - important for him when he is job hunting and checking email. Plus the phone line is free - Scott should be calling about any time now and we're not blocking him by being online. Might not be as fast as he's used to at work but it sure is faster than dialup!
We're also not sure how much we use at a time. Our "plan" is for 5 GB per month, we're not sure how long that will take us to use. Waiting for one of our more tech-savvy offspring to give us some enlightenment on that. Eric spent a good part of Friday with us, so not sure if we'll see him today. Will ask Scott when we talk.
So MAYBE we will have better internet. If we decide this doesn't work, our only option seems to be satellite with a few hundred dollars to invest in set up fees and equipment. With this, we had to pay $35 activation, it's $50 per month, and the little gizmo was free. And we can take the little gizmo anywhere to get service, not just have it at home.
I'm hoping we stick with it.
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