Moving House – The Pain of a Slow Link

When I first created this website, I imagined that I would be writing something new on it every day. At last, I thought, a place where I can easily jot down the things I notice and think about throughout my daily life!

Nice thought, but I didn’t reckon on how busy my life would suddenly be. Firstly a wedding. I’ve said my apology for that. Now it is moving house. Beatrice and I have to start from scratch. Thankfully, the wonderful wedding gifts have supplied our kitchen, but then there are whitegoods, furniture, the garden, tools, etc, etc, etc.

The aspect of the move that’s had the most impact on my life (and what a sorry life it is!) was the lack of high-speed permanent internet access at the new house. I’ve been reduced to dialing in using a 56K modem. Oh the pain! The Christmas holidays mean that I don’t have access to the fast work connection either.

Everytime I dial in from the laptop at the new place, it’s another 22c for a local phone call. Thankfully the mobile phone signal is much better at the new place, because hooking up the modem means no landline calls coming in. Remote sessions on the work computers become painful at the slow dialup pace, forget running my mail and browser programs remotely.

I have no idea how I survived in the dark old days of dialup. Many people feel they don’t need anything else, but I remember the cable access freeing me up to modify websites from home without worrying about blocking someone else’s calls. Wanted to check the news at any time of day, no problem! No more $100 phone bills per month.

Right now I’m back at the old place, typing away on my desktop which is hooked up to the Telstra cable internet connection. I haven’t moved it yet, anticipating the need for fast access. Unfortunately, there is no cable access at our new house, although thankfully there is ADSL, but that is $22 per month more than I pay now. Telstra won’t take back the old cable modem, nor can I sell it to someone else, because it is registered on the network under my name. What a waste! By the time we move again, who knows what kind of Internet access will exist?

Time to go home now – back to the slow lane (but not having to share my wife’s attention with my mother-in-law is an advantage!).

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