Rubber Meets the Road
Written on January 25, 2009 by Katherine W. Prawl
So now we know we need that amplifier. If you haven’t been following this blog, you might wonder what kind of amp is under discussion. Your best bet would be to start here and work forward in time to get the gist.
Back now? Good. OK, what convinced me was watching the “Cellular Signal Strength” indicator on the router all the way across New Mexico on Interstate-40 today. Dismal. The most it got was one and a half towers (tower #2 flickering off and on — mostly off). Now that we are in Albuquerque, or just outside the city limits, it’s up to three and a half out of four, which is not too bad. I am using the system in spite of the fact that the local RV park offers “WiFi access” because I’ve had past experience with the provider they use, and I was not impressed. If we are going to pay for WiFi, I’d rather pay for our own system than somebody else’s.
Speaking of paying, I was finally able to get MS Windows® to work again on a Parallels virtual machine today, so I plugged in the modem to the USB port on my iMac and finally was able to launch the MyVerizon desktop tool that indicates how much bandwidth has been consumed. I was a little disappointed that it only told me the damage up through two days ago, but that is better than not having any clue at all. It was good to see that till 3:45 p.m. (what time zone?) on 22 Jan 2009 we had only used approximately 218.something MB, out of our 5 GB monthly allowance. The bad news is that we used that much in just five days of not very intensive networking. Still, if we watch it, we ought to be able to stay under the limit. I do still think it’s pretty lame that the Mac version of the desktop tool won’t show bandwidth usage, though.
So, since we plan to spend time in cellular fringe areas, I suppose we will be ordering the amplifier that Mark recommended.
January 26th, 2009 at 4:37 am
Kat,
Just keep an eye on it, you should be fine.
218 MB? Shoot you only have 4,782 left!
January 28th, 2009 at 3:24 am
Yes, but that was before they counted all the MBs I spent downloading WinXP SP2 and security updates…. In 3 days we chewed through 1.5 GB Yikes!! Guess we’ll have to be watchful the rest of this billing period, for sure.
January 29th, 2009 at 12:12 am
I went through the same thing. Take advantage of any free Wi-FI’s you find on occasion too. I used to do that for all my updates. Worked well and sure cut back on the bandwidth!
January 29th, 2009 at 3:56 am
Yep, doing that now. We got into Tucson this evening and found a park with an available site and free WiFi. Saved!
January 30th, 2009 at 1:06 am
Atta girl! Every bit helps and save those updates and such for places like that. while in places like that and I’m sure you know also take advantage of any bandwidth hog work you might need to get done. I got so good at doing that sort of stuff I wound up being way below my 5GB many times. So much I felt guilty not using it lol! just saving all the updates for times like this will save you a ton of bandwidth. I have all my updates set to manual for cases like this. See if you would have waited just a couple days you could have done all that there. i fnally realized that the updates could wait.
January 30th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Thanks for the applause, Tony, but it’s not really deserved. I *am* a bandwidth hog — I use the ‘net intensively for work and play. Any extra bandwidth you don’t want, I’d be happy to take off your hands, any time! As of yesterday, in one week we’d used nearly half our monthly allowance (2183 MB), even when trying to take it easy and using available free hotspots. I don’t know how this is going to work out — we might have to buy a 2nd account/modem and switch them out when one gets used up. Either that, or I’m going to swipe my husband’s laptop and hang out at coffeeshops or someplace. There ought to be a better way, but I don’t think the cellular companies are trying too hard. They could make more money from geeks like me who would be willing to pay extra for more bandwidth, just not at the ridiculous $0.25/MB they charge for running over. I have a business grade account on my cable line back in Missouri, for about $20 more per month than a “normal” account, and everybody’s happy. Why can’t the cellphone people offer the same kind of deal, instead of calling people names just because their usage doesn’t fit their arbitrary limits?
January 31st, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Kat, it’s called the almighty $$$$$ We mobile people are a captive audience.;-)
January 31st, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Captive in one sense, locked in by their 2-year contract, but there IS competition. One can choose between at least two viable systems now, Sprint or Verizon, and depending on location, AT&T might be a contender. I think it’s just lack of imagination on the part of the cellular providers, who apparently don’t realize what a tiger they have by the tail. They could be making lots more money if they offered extended accounts for those willing to pay for them. I think the demand just surprised them, and they weren’t prepared for it. Look at AT&T after the introduction of the iPhone. We bought two of them on day-one, so we’ve been witness to the shortfalls and growth they’ve experienced as they have had to expand their network to accommodate all the data users they acquired because of Apple. The difference is that they’ve done it. Sprint and Verizon may need to accelerate their network build-out since they’re offering data-capable devices like these wireless modems and the Google smart phone, etc., but they also need to rethink their data customer offerings, since the demand exists and will be growing as more people get used to the notion of using wireless as their ISPs.