The Internet Is Coming

[Iowa Dave]

When I was a kid we visited my grandmother and grandpa on the farm when we could. They lived in Tama county iowa They had an old sturdy fruit crate that I could stand on to answer the wall telephone when a call came in. We answered when the ring was two longs and two shorts. Other farm wives also listened in. You could hear the click when they picked up the receiver.

My dad would sometimes talk with my uncle who lived four miles away. He did not appreciate eavesdroppers. So he would slide into some pretty rough language and a couple side comments about neighbors that he hadn’t cared for from before WWII. Then you’d hear the hang up clicks. You couldn’t be on the phone during an electrical storm. Farming with a team, getting a rabbit dinner with a four dollar .22 rifle, growing his own tobacco and picking acres of corn by hand with a corn husking glove my grandparents lived subsistence agriculture.

No worries about the internet, just about staying warm by the wood stove during the upcoming winter and getting the doctor “ in” on snow packed roads if someone got real sick. I never understood a lot of the conversations because the adults spoke Czech most of the time.

And those were the good old days.
Iowa Dave

[bborzell]

Not to brag, but there is still hope.

[Rrgramps]

I only have cellular data, no internet provider has made it out to me in the 25 years living here. Had Hughesnet, but quit them when I measured and compared my cellular speed against their 25mbps. My cellphone is 175mbps this morning.

[John in Santa Cruz]

Originally Posted by alanmalk

I remember using the Silent700 Texas Instrument terminal with its 300 baud modem. I do believe this was the slowest device on the planet.

no, that honor went to the ASR33 family of Teletypes... They were 10 chars/second, 110 baud. a 30 CPS Silent700 was lightning fast by comparision.

[SageRpod]

Ah, the Silent700. My first exposure to being on call and lugging that wonderful lump around in the field. Just don't leave that thermal paper on the truck dashboard too long on a New Mexico summer day.

Also, if anyone is hosting any form of Internet celebration, you need to invite Al Gore for obvious reasons.

[John in Santa Cruz]

Originally Posted by SageRpod

Ah, the Silent700. My first exposure to being on call and lugging that wonderful lump around in the field. Just don't leave that thermal paper on the truck dashboard too long on a New Mexico summer day.

Also, if anyone is hosting any form of Internet celebration, you need to invite Al Gore for obvious reasons.

the tty33s and silent700s and such predated the internet by at least 20 years. they were used for timesharing systems, minicomputer system consoles, etc.

[SageRpod]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

the tty33s and silent700s and such predated the internet by at least 20 years. they were used for timesharing systems, minicomputer system consoles, etc.

Of course they did. I probably should not have mashed those two separate thoughts into one message. In the late 70's I was a field technician for an entity that did explosives testing in the New Mexico desert. The test range was ringed by landline handsets next to the field instruments. We would sometimes get calls that sensors were down, so the drill was you hopped in a truck, drove out to the sensor, hooked up your Silent700 and started trouble shooting. It was painstaking back then and usually much faster to call the computer operator and have them on the phone helping you trouble shoot instead.

The Al Gore comment was humor directed at this thread's title "The Internet is Coming" and since Al is the self proclaimed inventor of the internet... well you get the picture.

[John in Santa Cruz]

Al Gore never said inventor. he pushed and passed the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 that allowed the NSFnet to be used for commercial purposes and not just for education and military, this made the internet possible.

[Rrgramps]

We’ve got rumors from our neighbors, that our electric company is putting in power for an internet. Hope it’s true. I have a 2011 MacBook Air that hasn’t seen WiFi. (Cellphone Hotspot is limited, and I don’t want to run MiFi gadgets anymore). it will be nice if we can get connected to a real network WiFi server. If we do, I’ll finally get a better setup to run a computer.


Internet is coming!
If it’s true.

[SageRpod]

You are right, he said he created the internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnFJ8cHAlco

[California Dreaming]

Originally Posted by WillyB

We do live outside of town about 40 miles but the problem is my home is 1/4 mile off the main road on a new street. Given that it was a new street and my address is not on the main road the internet and cable providers refused to pull their services down our road for 18 years. Anyone who's address is on the main road they have up to 1 Gig service.

Imagine going from 10 mega, on a very good day, and throttled to a very small daily limit of usage and if you go over that amount your speed is dropped to dial up speed which could hit you for the entire month to 1 gig service.

It's not fun trying to book airfare when that happens and it takes 15 minutes just to pull up www.Southwest.com

I'm not sure we even speak this new fangled "high speed internet" language.

How's your cell service? I live in a rural community without dedicated broadband but use my Verizon cell service to work from home and stream media. I use my phone as a mobile hotspot but I also purchased a jetpack (Mifi 8800) that I use for computer and smart devices (plugs, alexa, etc). If you have good cell service you should have access to Internet. Just be sure to get an unlimited plan that doesn't throttle speed <50 Gigs of data. You may find it cheaper than new broadband offering and more reliable than satelite

From,
Team Gen X

[Rrgramps]

My dog in 2016, waiting on an internet. She’s still waiting!

[Ooshkaboo]

It really is Convenient for him that he invented the internet, makes it way easier to scrub and spin all of his doom and gloom predictions.

[Mike G]

Tested my cable internet today: 277 mbps down, 10.9 up. Sure is better than the telephone company's DSL service that we got rid of about 4 years ago; it was only 2 mbps download speed... and it still is.

[alanmalk]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

the tty33s and silent700s and such predated the internet by at least 20 years. they were used for timesharing systems, minicomputer system consoles, etc.

Not really for the general public, but my ham radio and a Pactor modem out at sea would average 2 characters per second. It actually did some important emails with the help of a land-based ham operator. It was crude but I was glad to have it.

[brroberts]

StarLink Roam permanently mounted to my roof at home. It’s all I can get unless I go something like Hughes net. It ranges between 2 and 250 down. You just never know. Mostly 10 to 80 unless there is something you planned on streaming, and then it’s closer to 2. It’s also super expensive, but my choices are sort of okay or bad satellite. I had much better, cheaper internet in rural Alaska 12 years ago than now here 20 miles from either KU or the state capital.

[John in Santa Cruz]

Originally Posted by California Dreaming

How's your cell service? I live in a rural community without dedicated broadband but use my Verizon cell service to work from home and stream media. I use my phone as a mobile hotspot but I also purchased a jetpack (Mifi 8800) that I use for computer and smart devices (plugs, alexa, etc). If you have good cell service you should have access to Internet. Just be sure to get an unlimited plan that doesn't throttle speed <50 Gigs of data. You may find it cheaper than new broadband offering and more reliable than satelite

From,
Team Gen X

if you have good verizon service, check out visible.com ... you have to have an approved smartphone for it to work, its basically verizon resold, but its $30/month for unlimited data, unlimited voice+text. at that price point, you are a '2nd class citizen' on verizon, if full price verizon users are putting pressure on the network you will be throttled. for $40/month, visible+ puts you in the full range. its a no frills service, there's no stores to handhold you, if you need tech assisstance, its online, but I've been using it for a couple years on my Google Pixel phones (currently a 6a) without any issues. also supports stuff like wifi calling if your phone does. oh, and no hotspot restrictions either, if your phone supports being a hotspot, have at it, I do it all the time, and my laptop can get full bandwidth.

I've seen around 700Mbit/sec downloads from a fairly strong 5G connection.