After a lot of pleading I finally got it back today, but I don’t know how long for.
But it really looks like I’m going to totally lose my broadband connection and have to get the next best alternative, ISDN at 128k. It’s a real downer.
The ISP wants to get rid of me because I’m costing them money because they have to keep coming and fixing my weird connection (microwave wireless). Something – and they can’t discover what - keeps interfering with the signal and they have to send a technician up into the mountains to reset it/fix it.
As I’m their only customer on microwave (the rest of their customers are in town) I can quite see why they want me off their books.
Because I live too far from a telephone exchange I can’t get ADSL here, and cable hasn’t even been dreamt of in this remote neck of the woods. I can get a satellite internet connection but I’ve tried it in the past and found it next to useless. We get a lot of electrical storms and it simply doesn’t work when theirs lightning around. But the main reason I don’t like it is that it’s AU$499 a month (US$373) for a slowish speed and a 2gig a month download limit, which I really don’t feel like paying … it’s such a rip off.
Anyhow….for now I’m back online, and they say if the reliability doesn’t improve within two or three weeks they’ll have no option but to permanently cut me off.