Surf Like it’s 1999
Wednesday, August 9th, 2017Rural Internet Speeds in my Future
I am finally confronting the one big landmine of moving to a rural area: Internet service.
It’s 2017, right? Internet service is great everywhere. Nothing to worry about.
Ha.
Here is what I discovered. The list of conventional Internet providers who serve my new address consists of one entry. That’s right. One. There are also three satellite providers. Fine. Four choices, right? Not really.
The only conventional Internet provider proudly offers me 1.5 MBPS, and that’s download, which means it’s the fastest figure they have. Upload is always way slower. That means that if I made and uploaded a Youtube video, an upload starting right now would end about an hour after the sun burns out. Youtube videos are huge. Several GB. It takes an eternity to upload them where I am now, and I’m in a suburb with relatively good service. On the farm, with conventional service, uploading would be, in practical terms, impossible.
That leaves satellite service. Great! Problem solved! Maybe.
Satellite Internet is screwed up. The download speeds are good (if posted figures are true, which is almost certainly not the case). The upload speeds are…adequate. Hughesnet, the hot provider at the moment, claims 3 MBPS, so let’s say 2 MBPS. I can live with that, but I’m sure it will seem painfully slow in three or four years, because data usage creeps or leaps upward as years pass. I don’t think Hughesnet will send a new multi-billion-dollar satellite every year just to make me happy. Maybe the farm will have a real phone line in a few years, though, and that would fix everything.
Another problem: satellite providers choke your speed if you go over your data limit, and the data limits are pretty low. I would have to spend a lot on a hefty plan to avoid this.
TV is easier to deal with. I can get AT&T or DirecTV. I don’t care about this, because I barely watch TV, but my dad is elderly, and old people watch the crap out of TV.
Phones should be simple, but they’re not. I want a land line, because I hate cell phones. They drop calls, the batteries crap out, and the phones are uncomfortable to use. On top of that, even when they work, they screw with the timing of speech so you keep interrupting the person you’re talking to. It looks like I would have to get a land line from my Internet provider, if I want the best deal.
I tried to find out who runs the phone system in Marion County, assuming it would be AT&T, but I can’t get an AT&T line there. I know there are little piddly companies that do land lines, but I assumed AT&T would be in there somewhere. It’s not.
If it were up to me, I’d dump TV entirely and put the savings into a big satellite Internet account. TV sucks the life out of people. You’re born, someone puts you in front of a TV, and then suddenly you’re old. You die, and they pry the remote out of your hand and bury you. At least the Internet isn’t passive and completely useless. You can turn on the Internet and learn skills. You can become an engineer. You can learn languages. TV is just man’s way of telling God he resents being given a long lifespan.
Satellite is looking tempting. The latency will probably annoy me, but at least I would be able to interact with humanity instead of trying to view the web through a constricted keyhole.
There is no point in whining about it, apart from the tremendous satisfaction I get from whining. I hate Miami, and I can’t wait to move north, so I will make it work.
Funny thing; I called a rigging company today about moving my machines to Ocala. My dad used to be their attorney, so we know them. I told the boss about the move, and I could actually hear him grinning as he said, “I can’t BELIEVE you’re leaving MIAMI.” Everyone hates this place! In fact, that’s how I responded. I said, “EVERYONE hates this place!”
It’s almost 86 degrees here right now, after ten p.m. In Ocala, it’s 77. And you can go outside and see the stars.
Maybe after I move, I’ll be able to blog from one of the porches and watch the Hughesnet satellite fly past. But I guess they’re geosynchronous? Well. I’m sure I’ll see something.