Internet Service Providers

Moods are beyond foul here at the ERJ abode.

Mrs ERJ did extensive research---weeks---to find an Internet Service Provider...any Internet Service Provider who would provide us with service.

Apparently we live in the exact geographic center of a singularity triangle measuring precisely 20 km along the west side, 10 km along the north-east side and 10 km along the south-east side.  Inside of that triangle it is still 1976.

Mrs ERJ finally found a provider who offered 50 Gigabytes for $150 per month with a two year contract.  A thirty-five foot maple tree in the yard was felled to provide the optimum "look" to the south-southwest.  Holes were drilled in floors and walls.  Cable was strung.  The tech was stymied when the computer did not have Windows 10.  He hit another snag when it did not have Wifi.  Fortunately I had 50' of Ethernet cable to hardwire this box to the router.

These are the stats for the "old" ISP.  I think the Mbps is only part of the story as users share the bandwidth like the old Time Sharing Option computer systems.  The performance a user experiences is a combination of the system speed and how big of a slice the operating system gives you.

And it does not work.  I cannot tell you how slow it is because www.Speedtest.net times out.  The one "Ping" that went through was over 700 ms.  Everything times out before loading.  I could type more quickly on a manual typewriter.  I hooked up the old ISP to write this blog.

And we are on the hook for twenty-four months at $150 a month.  Arrrg!

Approximately half of the days in Michigan are totally overcast.  Systems that do not work on cloudy days are non-starters.

Mrs ERJ will call them in the morning to see if they can make things right.  It may be that the dish is not optimally aimed.  It may be that clouds and rain are an issue, which would suck in Michigan.  It may be that a branch is bobbing into the path of the signal. 

Meanwhile I am very, very grumpy.