satellite beams

Somewhere
Sep. 6, 2008

Somewhere up there is the lovely satellite that beams down the magical world of the world web web to us. Satellite internet is our only high speed option where we live. There is no DSL or cable. Two houses ago we had DSL then went to dial-up for the last house. We started with dial-up here then went to satellite. Let me start off by making it quite clear that even though satellite internet is called high speed it is not high speed as normally applies to internet connection. All satellite internet providers have what is called FAP (Fair Access Policy) which means if you exceed your bandwidth threshold that hour, they will cut back your speed to 40% for an hour. Now this one is hard to explain given you are paying a pretty good dollar for the bandwidth to begin with. Finally weather conditions can greatly affect whether or not you get a signal.

We've had speed issues with our connection right from installation a little over a year ago. Last weekend we were down to crawl in speed with pages refusing to load or taking as long as a half hour to load. We made yet another call to the provider to yet be told once again that it was weather related and were reminded that we were on a problem beam. Hmm, the skies were rather clear. The problems continued through Monday. Finally I called them again to be told I had been FAPed! Say what? Considering I hadn't been able to do anything online much of Monday I somehow had exceeded the bandwidth threshold. I don't think so! The lovely tech told me I must have a virus or trojan. Hello! I'm running on a Mac that is so squeaky clean it's almost embarrassing and besides viruses currently do not affect Mac. I ran MacScan to be sure there was no spyware. I found 2 tracking cookies of which were cleared out but nothing on my end would account for exceeding bandwidth. Out of frustration I pulled the plug to the modem. Tuesday morning I called again while the modem was unplugged to find I had been FAPed with the modem unplugged. Hmm, no way of any signal getting from our house to the satellite and yet I still exceeded bandwidth? To me that clearly said there was a problem on their end. The nice tech had me plug in the modum but not connect it to the router and leave it for four hours then call back. At the same time he told me I was somehow managing to get FAPed every 20 minutes, 7 days a week since at least August 11, the furthest he could call up! So days we were away and everything was powered down I was still getting FAPed! I called them back and they said everything was fine and I could plug it in. I plugged in, got online and immediately the speed went down to a crawl. I was FAPed again simply by connecting! I called them back and the tech had me once again unplug the ethernet leaving only the modem connected for an hour and told me to call back. I did and finally got the ok to connect again with a temporary boost to the next package (increased bandwidth) only to be immediately FAPed again. By now not only was I extremely frustrated and close to tears but my temper was starting to boil. I called them back to sit on hold waiting for a second level tech for 34 minutes! He told me to disconnect the ethernet yet again and leave the modem sit overnight then call back in the morning. I made a huge pot of tea then sat down to get a few pictures ready for blogs and do other offline computer work then settled into bed at 2 pm for watch Flipping Out. Even my most horrible days can't compare to his (Jeff Lewis)!

This morning I called and they patched me through to a second level tech. Apparently there had been no FAPs through the night so he had me connect the ethernet then go online to do a speed test. Immediately I saw the IP was different than my normal IP address. He said that was because the modem had been reset. Fine. Then he asked my location and using aerial location found our house. Surprise, surprise their co-ordinates for our house actually put our location a good 30 km southeast from where we are! So he corrected the co-ordinates so I now have a new IP meaning I'm in a different user's pool. I asked him to keep us at the higher bandwidth package as well. We had been on that last winter while three computers were often connected but had decreased it for the summer months.

Somewhere over the rainbow...

Sorry about that. My head is pounding but so far today the speed has been holding fairly good. Our little problem beam is actually able to find its way through the clear blue skies to bring the world to my fingertips. Today is good :)

Garden Gnome
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