Saturday, October 03, 2009

Still Waiting

When the Florida thing fell through, I immediately contacted the broker dude about getting Megapath on the stick with this DSL thing they claim they can do. Of course, not a peep from Megapath. Which most likely means that some sales dude promised something that the hardware dudes can't deliver. Wednesday morning will have been one week; if I don't hear anything by then, we'll be going with Hughsnet. The speed is actually better than what Megapath was offering for the same money and installation is cheaper. The only problem with satellite is the latency issue (everything has to travel up to geo-stationary and back; about 45,000 miles round trip) and weather interruptions (which, contrary to the cable TV ads, are rare). Even then, still better than dial-up.

Speaking of waiting, we're pretty much at a stand-still in the basement until the plumber dudes show up again. They had to come back out anyway because we had to take Debbie's mom over to Menards to pick out a new toilet to replace a very old one that basically fell apart when the plumber dude touched it. It was turquoise (which tells you how old it is), so no great loss to the world of bathroom fixtures. But now one of the toilets they thought they had fixed is still leaking, or maybe started leaking from somewhere else. Anyway, we can't shift stuff from the last room that needs to be peeled/patched/plastered/primed/painted until they get back here because where we were planning on shifting it to is exactly where the plumber dudes need to get to fix the leak. But we are mostly done with everything else and have started setting up a little living area for ourselves in one room, and actually got the water bed frame put together in the room we plan to use as a bedroom. A "California king" mattress is due to be delivered Monday or Tuesday (more waiting) which will pretty much make that room into a usable bedroom.

We were hoping to get outside and do some yard stuff and get things ready for winter, but after not raining for the first month we were here, it looks like Michigan is making up for lost time. So more waiting. Of course, just as I typed that, the sun poked through a hole in the clouds, so we may still get some time in the sun. Which is good; we've been in the basement so much, we're starting to look like those lizards cavers find with no eyes and transparent skin.

So the bottom line is that we're still waiting. Just waiting....

2 comments:

GreatMatt said...

One thing to watch out for with the Satellite internet is the data restrictions. Not sure if they all do it, but a friend of mine has Satellite internet, and he only gets 200MB per day of downloads. Once he hits that, he's throttled down to basically dial-up speeds. Just something to check on. He really notices the latency when online gaming, but general surfing, it's not really noticeable. Hardly ever loses signal due to the weather. Good luck!

Ric said...

Yea, all the satellite providers have daily download limits. Unlike cable providers, they spell it out very clearly instead of advertising "unlimited" then throttling anyone that actually believes that (looking in your direction, Cable One). The plan we were looking at has a 450MB cap which is ignored from something like midnight to 7am so people can schedule software updates for those times. We're probably screwed when it comes to Hulu and Amazon Unbox, but otherwise, we should be fine.

I know from having satellite TV that it is rarely effected by weather, and then only if there is lightening in a direct line between your dish and the satellite. The cable company ads make it sound like you lose signal every time it gets cloudy.