Cut Off

For the two of you that read the blog regularly, the communication gods have conspired to cut me off from both satellite and dial-up access. This, coupled with a spate of gorgeous weather and gardening necessity has made it nearly impossible, or highly undesirable to make posts.

Watch this space for pics of the emerging dry stone wall; furniture being moved into the studio; and an upcoming plague of frogs.

Broadband Bill Defeated

I heard a fleeting snippet of news on the radio that a "broadband bill" had been defeated in the Senate. I never heard another word or could I find any headlines on the Internet. Between battling with my own dropped connections, I managed to find links to the Bill.

Targets for every household to have minimum speeds of 5mbps in 2009. Sounds like any good developed nation to me ...

Perhaps I'll whine about my own tribulations with caving into one-way satellite in another post. It hasn't been going well, but I'm maintaining my optimism that I might actually get it to work consistently. It is only out of desperation that I haven't shipped the whole kit back to Germany already.

Air Con

I have yet to meet a single person who likes Eircom. How does a company survive with so much ill-will? They are clearly the most un-user-centred organisation I have ever come across. What was mere distaste and disbelief for me became full-blown hatred this evening.

I still haven't figured out how you can justify charging €24.99 for 150 hours of dial-up, and at the same time offer 1MB broadband for €15. My current bill was €57.01 for dial-up and no discount on local or national calls. That was the charge for recurring service and two calls totaling 18 cent. However, here is their cheapest broadband bundle for €55.99.

• UNLIMITED local and national calls anytime
• LINE rental included
  
• FREE wireless modem
• FREE exclusive online access to setanta sports
• Connection charge €29.99
• FREE 1GB online storage

I need to retain my dial-up connection to use with the satellite and the last hurdle was I couldn't connect to my flat-rate dial-up number. I could only connect to the pay-as-you go number. 1 cent over the weekend to get started was fine, but that went to 5 cent a minute during the weekday.

Now get this ... to talk to dial-up support, you get charged .33/minute. On my THIRD call to support, I was on the line for 22 minutes and my issue was still not resolved. (You still get charged regardless if they solve your issue. Is this legal?!) Support even claimed Eircom didn't sell satellite broadband. (I was trying to understand how the sold a similar product that operates under the same principles.)

Still, the Irish government shortlisted Eircom as one of four companies that may be awarded the contract to roll out the National Broadband Scheme. God help us all.

Super Sunday

Yes, the game was super last Sunday, but officially at 12:55AM, I got the satellite broadband configured with my wireless router. The whole thing has been a bit of an odyssey. I'm sure hell only has dial-up connections.

The dish has been on the house for a week, but the install failed to work. I had another installer come out to the house only to tell me that I needed to be using a two-wire phone cable as opposed to a four-wire cable. Ever heard of an FAQ, guys?

But ... the web has come alive again, albeit in 1Mbps goodness. I can actually download things. It's like Web 3.0 ... I may even begin blogging again.

Broadbandits

Broadband. The very word is like a kick in the stomach. After waiting months for Cross Country Broadband to get their act together and start offering two-way satellite, they finally renamed themselves National Broadband and began selling the Astra service. You must check out their site. (Oh, boy.) Now I am so desperate for broadband I went so far as to start the order process with them even though their site doesn't even have Terms & Conditions or a return policy posted. When I discovered that €24.99/mth for 256K satellite service, really costed €80/mth in the bundle, with free TV and not as cheap as 13434 telephone, I was still interested. When they sent me a Paypal request for a €570 ($820) initial payment, I started to get worried, came to my senses and ordered one-way, 1Mb satellite from SkyDSL instead. My fingers are crossed.

Room with a view

My boss Toby and his family bought a new house near Dromahair, with a lovely and dramatic view out the back. More importantly, even though you can't see it in the picture, perched upon that faraway hill is a broadband mast ... megabit envy.

Dial-down

I want to make blog entries ... I really, really want to, but I can't even load the damned site with my dial-up connection. Having condensed my two phone lines to a single line (cost savings), the dial-up connection has gotten even slower, potentially due to a fault on the line.

Perhaps there is a client application that will allow me to create posts and upload them when I get to work?

The surest way to lose all interest in your blog is to stop posting on a regular basis. It's not intentional, just a pain tolerance level has been breached.

Wireless dial-up

Yeah, you read that right. I may have mentioned in a past post that I discovered a serial modem port on the back of my wireless router while dreaming of broadband. Apparently the port is a back-up if your broadband connection fails. Well, obviously if you don't have any connection, the router would create one through the modem. After acquiring a free modem from work I'm happily writing my first post from the couch in the living room.

Eircom just socked us for a €140 phone bill. I'm paying €25/$34 for 28.8 dial-up ... and we maintain an extra line for the dial-up at an additional €20. So, you could argue we're paying €45/$61 per month for dial-up. But, it's wireless dial-up now.

2.8 Cheers for Dialup

I finally discovered one advantage of dial-up. We had a three hour power outage last night and I was still able to surf. Cordless phones don't work. No mobile service reaches the house either. But a fully charged laptop and a phone line did the trick.

I just discovered that I can hook an external serial modem up to my wireless router. It is supposed to function as a back-up if broadband fails. Hopefully it will function as a wireless dial-up router so we don't have to sit corded to the office desk!

I put out a message at work to see if anyone has a spare serial modem. Having a wireless dial-up connection is pretty silly. Having to buy an external serial modem in 2007 is ridiculous.

Broadbanned

Hi Justin,

Wish I had more definite news, but we are still trying to make progress with various parties to establish a transmitter in the Carrownagilty / Carrane Hill area. So far it has been difficult and painfully slow but we are trying.

Will advise later on any progress.

It's not looking good for broadband this year. I have my fingers crossed, but we appear to be on Irish time now.