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Getting good service from Internet broadband providers can be
tricky. For a long time, high speed Internet providers were not even
available in the area where I live. You see, it is a very rural town.
There is one main highway with about three blocks of stores, and
nothing for miles around. Although the population has grown a lot in
the last few years, it is still a pretty backwater town. The only
Internet was available through dial up providers. It was the 21st
century and we were using dial up! Fortunately, things have changed.
Unfortunately, they have not changed enough. We finally got
Internet broadband providers a few years ago. Actually, that is not
right. We got a single Internet broadband provider. For 12 months, the
only Internet available was Earthlink DSL. At first, I was overjoyed. I
used to use EarthLink back when it was exclusively a dial up Internet
provider. I was always pretty happy with the service I got. I guess
where you live makes a big difference in how good the service is. I had
heard a lot of buzz about how fast things were with Internet broadband
providers, but my DSL was barely twice as fast as my dial up. To
say I was disappointed would be an understatement. The Internet was
down as often as it was working. Finally, we got a few other Internet
broadband providers into town. We had Comcast cable Internet for one,
which seemed to work a little better. Nonetheless, it still failed
almost as often as it worked. Both Internet broadband providers tried
to shrug off blame. They said that it was some problem with some
regional switching station. They were always vague, and it was
impossible to get straight answers from the Internet broadband
providers. In fact, until our town threatened to build its own Internet
service provider, they were content to give us lousy service. I guess
that the Internet broadband providers figured that we would have to
choose one of them. No matter which choice we made, we would have to
settle for lousy service. Finally though, we were able to get
them to upgrade their service. Soon, we had some of the best Internet
service in rural Kentucky. I know that this does not say much, but it
still was a step up from before. The local University now even has its
own T1 line. I guess things have come a long way in a few years. |
