ISP Problems

ISP Problems

I am reduced to dialup. This week, my wireless ISP has had several interruptions of service. They replaced one piece of equipment--the problem came back--and more viciously--today. The connection comes up for a few minutes, then data rates start to fall, eventually hitting zero.

Dialup enables me to check email every once in a while. But trying to do my job remotely over dialup is impossible, because SonicWALL Global VPN Client can't seem to bring up a VPN. I don't think that there's anything intrinsic to dialup that prevents it--it may just be that it takes so long for the far end to respond that the near end gives up. This either needs to be get straightened out in the next day or so, or I will have to drive back to Bend.

I can blog--but performance is so poor that it is hardly worth the effort. Trying to do historical research for my next book? Too painful to try.

Frontier Telephone keeps promising me DSL service. They keep asking me to sign up--sometimes even making appointments to come out and install it. But they can't do it. There is no cable TV service out here in the boonies, so there's no cable Internet, either.

This is a beautiful place to live--but this is one of the drawbacks.

UPDATE: The nice thing about being a customer of a small ISP is that I am enough of the customer base that they don't ignore these problems. I seem to be operational again.