h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The SubEthaNet isn't working very well, and I don't know what is wrong. I can't seem to use gmail, skype or twitter. Reassuringly h2g2 still works, I think.

I hope it is just the lousy internet service we country bumpkins are supposed to be ever so grateful to overpay for. I'll head into town in a bit and sponge off of the library's WiFi.

Can't wait to get real internet service, but that will take our government growing a spine, enforcing FCC rules, and maybe even breaking up a monopoly. I hope I live long enough to see it.

No internet and your government doesn't do anything about it?
Scandalous; orff with their heads.

It's worse than that, Bel. We've paid our government (through excise taxes or somethinlikethat) for high speed internet everywhere. The telcos were supposed to put in fiber-optic infrastructure in exchange for those extra fees and taxes we are paying for still. Also, when we finally switched our broadcast TV services to digital the old frequency bands for the analog TV were auctioned off at ridiculously cheap prices to these same telcos so that they could offer them up for wireless service for "cheap". That hasn't happened either. Now they offer so called "unlimited" 4G at "blazing fast" speeds but they cap your monthly usage so that if you were to actually use their fastest speeds you would reach your monthly cap in sometime between a few hours to a few days. How that is "unlimited" I haven't the foggiest.

Well, lousy internet, and the government permitted a series of "consolidations" despite FCC rules which should have at least given them a moment's pause. Said consolidations resulted in a monopoly, and the company have decided the internet market for rural America simply isn't worth their bother, especially now that they don't have to worry about competition.

It seems to be an service slowdown. A wonderfully old-fashioned site like h2g2 works, but the more modern gmail doesn't, nor skype.

It's not always fab for some of us city bumpkins, either. I pay out the nose for high speed internet, and I can't even view a 2-minute YouTube video without it buffering every 15 seconds most days. The monopolies can offer whatever crappy service they want and we're stuck, because there's no other options. I can't get DSL because our building is too old and the phone lines don't support data. I could get a dish, but it costs too much and unlike cable, there's no option to go without the TV service to save a few dollars. Apparently my (also crappy) cell phone company offers some sort of wireless internet option, but only with a USB stick, and I need to hardwire my PC. It's really frustrating what the monopolies get away with here. And a special thanks goes out to Mr. Ronnie Reagan for deregulating all the industries he did, thereby allowing more monopolies to form and screw as many consumers as possible.

Considering what a small town I live in, I guess that I should be grateful for the two options. I live close enough to the 'switch', and despite 1948 installed copper up my street, the ADSL delivers me an average of 6 Mbps (some sites as high as 7). And THE cable company has offerings for anyone else, though the are very susceptible to techies over-riding controls and stealing the bulk of the bandwidth

Those are my choices as well. ONE TELCO with ADSL (at 5mbps or less) or ONE cable co. that I refuse to ever go back to because of their horrible customer service and high prices. (Paying $50/month or so for using a 3G USB modem isn't an attractive option either.)

To paraphrase a rather flamboyant political candidate, "The internet is too damn high!"

*blinks* I forget that America isn't always at the shining forefront of technology. Those in the rural parts of the UK also suffer, but most of us town dwellers get something decent, even if it's nowhere near what's advertised.

Canada and the US may create a lot of really cool technologies, but often enough they are just too pricey for the average Jane or Joe to afford here.