REAL High Speed Internet

     You may remember one of my earlier blogs about slow to NO Internet entitled Surfing Thru a Straw.  Well, the exact thing happened again last week.  You might think, no that isn't possible but it is and it did.  My Internet, along with thousands in my general vicinity, was slow for three days then completely out of service for four days.  After the third day, the company was no longer even taking trouble reports, there was just a recording saying an outage existed for my area.  Really?  Awesome deduction, can you just fix it?  I even notified management of the problem on the first day.  It was determined to be in the downtown office early on(because it was so soon from the last time??).  Oh well!  I was told on the third day they were waiting on a "maintenance window"!  That means they were waiting till after midnight to take it down and fix it...  I said, "it's not working now, why wait?"
  
      With two college students in the house, not to mention that we've all become somewhat dependant on the Internet, I was ticked.  My loyalty only goes so far...  I picked up the phone and called Charter!  I spoke to Laura who said she could have my service installed in three days.  That was on the second day of the outage.
 
     On Friday, my installation day, I woke up excited.  Just for fun, I turned on the computer and discovered my normal 1.5M/sec service was back up.  Wow, someone finally fixed the problem, but too late to save this customer.  But that's okay, BellSouth's old customer service was WAY too good, right AT&T????  I turned the computer off and thought, "never mind"!

  
   
     My Charter tech called around 1PM and arrived about 1:15PM.  I have to admit that seeing a Charter truck in my driveway was something I never expected to see!  He was finished a short time later and my old BellSouth modem lay silent.  No lights, no power, no service...  kinda like usual! 
  
     My DSL speed, however, was soaring!  12M/sec is totally awesome!!!!  This is the way the Internet is supposed to be!  I click on something and it is there!  I don't wait on YouTube videos anymore.  The feeling was even better than when I went from "dial-up" to 1.5Meg/sec.  It was blazing fast!  A couple of months ago, I purchased Apple TV, and although happy with it overall, it was not what I had expected.  Well, with 12MEG service, my opinion of it has changed.  Something similar will be the future of television.  Choosing what you want to watch, instead of being force fed network garbage, definitely has it's advantages.

     I also priced the only other option, which was 4G cell coverage, but it was cost prohibitive.  I'm happy with my choice to go with Charter DSL.  The switchover was easy because I already had a separate router behind my BellSouth modem.  The Charter technician got his modem up and running.   I unplugged from one to the other and It was business as usual... well, it worked and was very, very fast!

     I'm sure that I am not seeing the big picture when I look at various companies Internet delivery service.  What I see are every one's tiny delivery options costing the customer a tremendous amount of money.  The Japanese seem to be way ahead of us on this.  I recently watched a video showing their Ultra High Definition service.  It is 16 times the clarity of HD.  A true 33 megapixel picture.  They plan to begin broadcasting it around the year 2020.  We don't have anything like it nor can any company deliver the bandwidth required.  Our companies are just milking subscribers for 3D image trickery.  It is a short sighted philosophy.  The pipes to homes need to be larger... think fiber optic to the house!  I've heard Verizon in California is focusing in this direction.  With fiber optics the bandwidth is virtually unlimited.  It is the network of the future.  Companies who are focusing on wireless broadcast spectrum are going to be left behind.   Wireless is too limited and spectrum is very expensive...  but hey, it's just my opinion!

The Ideal Christmas Gift

     I've got a great idea!  It hit me today while driving to work...  The economy is horrible.  It's so bad that folks are occupying wall street in protest.  Unless you're a CEO, it's a struggle to make ends meet.  Everybody could use a little more cash.  Christmas is coming like a freight train downhill...   Santa will be here soon, what are we going to give for presents? 

     Okay, here we go.  What if we all gave cash this year for presents?  Now, before you utterly reject the idea, let's look at the pros and cons.

     First of all, the downside would be for the smaller children.  I suppose they would probably be disappointed.  It might cause them some kind of Christmas phobia they could never overcome...  one more thing to blame their parents for.   Or it could just push them over the edge, which of course might be funny...

 So right off, let's exclude them.  Children get presents!  

     Who does that leave... just everybody else!  We've only excluded a small group with toys.   You've still got your family, friends, fellow employees, garbage men and the paper boy. 
So, any more downside to giving cash?  Nope!

      What about the pros?  There are lots!  You won't have to search through the mall hunting through overpriced gifts and being sneezed on by sick people!  You don't have to worry about what to buy your Aunt Anna or Uncle Stephen, everybody likes cash!  And think about this, the guacamole bowl wouldn't go with Aunt Anna's kitchen anyway.  She would just take it back, so you even saved her a trip back to the store.  Let's face it, returning any gift can be a hassle.  It takes time standing in line along with gasoline for the trip.  Plus, you don't have to deal with those store employees who have bad attitudes.  So far, cash looks like a great choice.

     Lets look at the political and economic side for a minute.  As I said earlier, the economy stinks and it isn't going to get better soon.  Christmas is just another opportunity for big business to stick it to you one more time.  They take your good cash(and they want it bad) and swap you that for cheap guacamole bowls from Mexico made with radiated plastic chunks of oil that aren't good for you!  Let's cut out the middleman and wrap up the cash this year.  Tell your local businesses they haven't helped you this year, so your charity is a little weak too.  I've been waiting all year for some company to announce lower prices to help consumers---IT HASN'T HAPPENED!  They have to meet wall street expectations.  Sales are off so prices have gone UP!  Well, all that merchandise they're stocked up on for Christmas, if it isn't sold... guess what?  It gets discounted after Christmas!  Cha-Ching, there is your deep discount! 

     Hopefully, it isn't just the people you give gifts of cash that are enjoying those discounts!  Make sure you pass the work around that YOU WANT CASH 2!  Think about all the savings we're going to enjoy!

     Now, we can't leave this idea without focusing on the amount just a little.  You don't want to annoy anyone with an amount that they feel didn't equal the guacamole bowl.  With inflation, I suppose twenty dollars would be a decent gift for anyone other than a close relative.  Those Ben Franklin notes would be good for those who are close to you($100.00).  And remember, you can always multiply accordingly!  Isn't this going to be fun?!