Technology

Dan here ~

One of the issues we have had to learn to live with in our retirement home is technology. Sounds easy…think again.

Usually when people think of where to go for internet it is their local telephone company. In the old days you move to a new location, you call your phone company to get a phone and later internet. We called, we can get a phone but no availability for internet. We don’t want a phone. We have cell phones.

We get notices in the mail from Spectrum all the time saying to call to get great deals on TV and Internet. (almost as often as I get phone calls about my auto warranty) They came out and said sorry, no way could we get service from them.

Internet is a necessity in today’s world of isolation.

We found we could get internet through our cell phone provider, so we tried that when we moved here. It works quite well, until it doesn’t. After our “unlimited” data plan consumes 160 gigabytes of whatever data is, it slows down to what we refer to as dial up. Extremely slow, forget about TV. Surfing is painfully slow and at my age, by the time the asked for web page loads, I’ve forgotten why I was going there.

The last few months we have been getting notices telling us that we have used up our allotted high speed data and have been reduced to dial up. The first time we had only a few days left in the billing cycle, the next time we had several days left until high speed was to return.

After dedicating my walk to mentally mull it over, yesterday I visited the cell phone store to buy another plan and receiver to add an additional 55 gigabytes. I am connecting it to just Carol’s computer. The original 160 gigabytes will be used for the laptop, ipads, iphones and TV. We will see if this works. 

Now if someone can explain to me what to devil a gigabyte is and how we consume it I would be grateful.

Oh by the way, I finished Rona 9, turned out to be a twin of Rona 8. Must be a fraternal twin, or a “brother by another mother” as they say. Rona 10 will take a while, I’m piecing as fast as I can.

Stay safe, enjoy.