I've been revisiting the alternate universe of dialup Internet this
week - and not liking it a bit. Well, except for the fact that it
works, which my wireless broadband has decided not to do whenever it
rains, or even when a heavy dew is down.
This has been the rainiest week of the year here so far.
We finally got a broadband hookup last September 10 (see Charles Moore Finally Gets
Broadband!), and it's been very reliable up to now, including
through plenty of rainstorms over the past nine months.
Theories
There are several theories regarding this new issue that I've
discussed with my service provider's technical support representatives
and with my tech-support savvy daughter who has experience with
marginal wireless setups. One is that new leaves are finally coming out
here on deciduous trees (we get very late spring here in eastern
coastal Nova Scotia), and with a stand of tall trees between us and the
wireless tower, about 2-1/2 miles away, it's speculated that rainwater
on the leaves - especially if fluttering in the wind - may be creating
interference that's blocking the wireless signal.
There were still leaves on the trees last fall when the wireless was
installed, but at that time of year they have a low moisture content,
and I suppose that means less potential to interfere with line-of-sight
wireless signals than with fresh and moist new spring leaves. It's also
possible that the internal modem might be defective, but the timing of
this problem cropping up at exactly the same time as the green-up (as
it's called here) is interestingly coincidental, to say the least.
We won't know until they get a service tech here. I requested a
service call on Saturday, and the dispatcher finally got back to me to
set up an appointment Tuesday morning. I'll cut them some slack because
violent thunderstorms and localized torrential rain rolled through
Sunday night, precipitation a lot of service calls, but it's very
frustrating when one's livelihood depends on Internet access, and more
rain and showers are predicted for three of the seven days of the
current forecast.
Chopping Down Trees
On the weekend I decided to take things into my own hands, so to
speak, and working between rain cells, I cut down a 30 foot maple in
the backyard that was directly in the antenna's line of trajectory to
the tower, plus two scruffy balsam firs for good measure.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have helped much. The broadband
crapped out as soon as it began to rain in earnest again. When the
weather dries up, the broadband signal returns.
The problem is that perhaps six or eight more trees (and probably
more) need to be cut down in order to give the antenna a clear shot at
the tower, and some of them are pretty big. I know the limits of my
expertise at tree felling, and these specimens are beyond it. I don't
really want to drop that much timber without confirmation that leaves
are really the cause of the issue, but if the service guy can't find
another cause for the poor wet-weather reception tomorrow (the weather
is predicted sunny all day), I'll have to request some tree-cutting
assistance from my neighbor, who does a lot of it.
Back to Dialup
Anyway, I've been obliged to fall back on Plan B for Internet access
in wet weather: dialup. I let our dialup account lapse last fall, but a
good friend has kindly given me permission to access her account for
emergencies, although if this issue persists for any length of time
I'll be ethically obliged to become a dialup subscriber again for the
duration. I hope it doesn't come to that.
It's not really a very satisfactory solution, other than it's
rock-solid reliability. In 12 years as dialup users, we never went more
than a few hours without service, and those extremely rarely. It's only
been nine months since we got broadband, but I keep asking myself how I
put up with this for a dozen years. (The short answer is that there was
no affordable alternative.)
Performance seems to be even worse than I remember. Actually, it
probably is qualitatively worse than I remember.
For example, my favorite news and entertainment media site
redesigned its already abominably slow and busy webpage right around
the time I got broadband. It's none-too-swift even on high-speed, but
it's like the proverbial cold molasses running uphill in the wintertime
on dialup, taking a good four or five minutes to load the home
page.
And that's just one example.
Dialup Users Left Behind
The Web has moved on, leaving dialup users by the wayside.
Unfortunately there are still parts of this province that have no
access to broadband other than astronomically expensive satellite
Internet. The ISP dispatcher this morning said the service tech would
be checking out the possibilities for reception for someone else in
this neighborhood, but doubted that it would be feasible. There are
many more like that here who have just one affordable broadband option
available, and that's if you aren't behind a hill or other obstruction.
Wireless is convenient, easy to set up under the right circumstances,
and a lot cheaper than hardwired infrastructure like DSL, but I remain
an aficionado of hardwired solutions.
Here's hoping this rain crap-out issue can be identified and solved
with reasonable dispatch. I'm not at all a happy or patient camper on
dialup anymore, although I have to say I'm grateful it's still
available here. Bog-slow Internet is better than no Internet at all.
