Re:Off the Grid, but Still Online
by toothbrush on Tuesday October 13, 2015 @04:33AM
(#10379166)
> Quite a change from a few years ago when all she could get was 21.6Kbps dialup, and I had to send her a literal pile of USR Courier modems with instructions "if you have a lightning storm and the modem won't work the next day, throw that one in the trash and plug in another from the stack."
With all due respect, that seems very decadent. Back when we lived in the sticks, the (simple) rule was to just unplug (from power as well as POTS) all electronic equipment when not in use. Never lost a modem to a thunderstorm in those days!
This was at a point when most people already had broadband, and used dialup modems were dirt-cheap on eBay (e.g., that's why she had a stack of USR Courier V.Everything models instead of Sportsters). IIRC I got a few of them from toss-out piles at ISPs I worked for, and some were my own stash from before I went to ISDN then cablemodem at home.
I couldn't depend on her to unplug everything every time there was a storm.
Her "broadband" connection is a 2-6/2Mbps Wimax connection via an antenna on the roof to the nearest town a few miles away. It's still weird being able to sit out "in the middle of nowhere", talking to friends online, and order stuff I need and still have it show up the next day. Was a lifesaver when I stayed there for two weeks back in March after she had a hospital stay, and I needed a proper office chair and a folding table to act as a desk rather than using her kitchen table.
Was still able to work remotely just fine (most of my stuff was SSH to remote servers, and a web browser).
More surprising is that when I did the same thing earlier this month to help her after knee replacement surgery, that I could get T-Mobile LTE inside her house - back in March, I'd only been able to get it while sitting on the front porch.
Quite a change from a few years ago when all she could get was 21.6Kbps dialup, and I had to send her a literal pile of USR Courier modems with instructions "if you have a lightning storm and the modem won't work the next day, throw that one in the trash and plug in another from the stack."