After resisting the trend for years, out of frustration with DSL we finally went to cable and went from about 3 to 60 whatever it is. The phone company refused to upgrade equipment to our area even though a couple blocks away they had good speed. We have fiber optic too but that company has reorganized and sold itself several times so just didn’t trust them.
DSL degrades the farther it’s away from the main switch at the phone company. Has a max effective range of about 5 miles. It’s not a mater of upgrading equipment. With DSL if you want faster speed you need to move closer to phone company.
And 60mb/sec is extremely fast. At best I can get 25mb with Concast. We do have Fios with fiber connection for speeds of 100mb/sec - but the closest hookup is about 10 miles away. And they stopped running fiber over a decade ago.
That’s not true. It is the distance to the fiber interface!
Ok that may be true. But here in NH and many other parts of the country the phone comoany isn’t running fiber anywhere. And won’t be in the near future.
It’s not just NH.
A few years ago, Verizon got a sweetheart deal from the esteemed governor of NJ, when he allowed them to opt out of providing fiber optic service to semi-rural and rural areas.
Since I despise the cable TV company, I am essentially stuck with DSL–at best–for my computer.
Not to get off on Quest but we had the same problem at work years ago. Most everybody in Minneapolis and St. Paul had touch tone phones but they refused to upgrade their central office equipment so that we could also have it along with other businesses served by that office. So we were paying high rates for rotary dial if you can believe it. Finally in frustration I just installed our own phone system and saved somewhere around $100,000 a year with better phones and services and all the bells and whistles (same system as used by the Pentagon). When they pulled the old solenoid switching equipment out, they said it was bound for South America where it would be an upgrade. So I’m loyal but not stupid and when I can cut costs in half, good bye Quest.
So thats the deal Mike ?And thanks for the GMail idea folks (that does seem to be the trend ,we are suppossed to have something better coming on the DSL,time will tell .
I dont type messages on a cellphone(I am out of service a lot around here anyway)The NRO has a lot to do with what gets put up in the way of cell towers and what not around here(you dont get a bar in Greenbank ) This area is part of the National radio quiet zone( or something to that effect ) I didnt realize how much area the quiet zone covered till I seen it outlined on a map.We are actually rather fortunate to have internet service at all ,the local provider (one of my friends ) basically took it on himself to provide fiber in this area,He must be making money ,but I bet He is barely breaking even on it and they are very good on service.
Strange thing happened around 3-4 weeks ago , a T storm came up and lightning struck a tree in close proximity to the buried phone wires (it was a Hybrid Poplar tree(looks like a cross between an Aspen and tulip Poplar) anyway I was lying in bed trying trying to watch something on the "Amazon Fire "TV device ,when the calamity ensued,fire flew out of both sides of the router,the modem was crisped and one phone died in the kitchen.Our service was out for a couple of days ,it was funny how some devices were knocked out( killed a ryobi charger in an outbuilding and knocked out stuff here and their around the neighborhood) The strange thing was it didnt hurt the Amazon Fire device or the TV(I suppose because of the wifi connection,Anyway in the next day or so,subsequent investigation revealed where the discharge went to "Earth ",it didnt seem to hurt the tree much ,but there were a pair of roots that seemed to explode,it dug two parallel trenches about 8-10 ft long ,all I can say is "glad I wasnt standing there ,mother nature is nothing to trifle with .
That reminded me that at work dedicated grounds were used for high priced electronic equipment. One time though the lightning struck the ground some distance away, traveled through the ground and up the dedicated ground rod to the equipment. That’s what I was told anyway. I don’t think we had much of any damage from it.
I also remember the wife and I were sitting in the living room one afternoon and a ball of fire seemed to come in the front of the house and out the back. It was just a few seconds and we thought we were seeing things but we both saw it. Glad I wasn’t standing in the way of it.
Must have been "ball lightning " still not sure if there is a good explanation for the phenomenom or not ,on the subject of grounds cattle are very sensitive to electric current(apparently doesnt take much to do them in ) one of my Uncles said there was some diary cows or what not not that wouldnt eat out of a trough or manger,I think there was like a metal grid to keep cows separated and somehow a small electric current traversed the bars ,later it was found that and electric cable with an bare exterior ground was buried nearby and the bare grid was corroded through ,so the current was going to ground through the metal around the cows feed bunker and the cows were feeling the current and wouldnt eat out of the bunker,I am very particular about grounds on autos and especially home wiring.
Yes, stray voltage issues around farms was a big deal when I was a kid. Called a farmer job for a reason. They were the most resourceful people and sometimes by necessity did things that weren’t the approved way to do them. Messing with electrical often led to improper installations that created ground currents. Even just having the ground currents can interfere with milk production, they are sensitive to it…