Posted: March 6, 2024 Posted by: John Scalzi
Living in rural America, Apparently I’m forever cursed with slow internet speeds on country roads where cable lines don’t exist. It stayed at 6mbps for 10 years, but a few years ago my boyfriend’s DSL provider finally upped the speed to his 40mpbs. Still, it’s pathetically slow. Most standard, but eventually fast enough to watch streaming TV. But as you can see, the internet is much faster now. That’s 8 times faster! Breakfast speed!
…as long as I’m in a church with this (relatively) super fast internet. Because it’s in the city! This is where your local cable provider installs their cables. I’m still pretty suspicious at home. But since the church is an office space, it’s important to go to the church to do your work (and do it, especially if it involves large downloads), which is why we brought the Internet to the church. Fun fact: It’s actually impossible to have the same speed internet connection at church as your home internet connection. They just don’t even sell it. The 300mbps we got is the lowest speed they offer.
The internet is connected through a room in the corner of the basement that appears to have once been the church’s office. I was worried that the signal wouldn’t be able to get through his three stories of brick and concrete, but it turns out that the router I purchased does an okay job of transmitting the signal. Even at the farthest location from the router (the southwest corner of the balcony), there is still a fully usable signal, albeit significantly attenuated. Attenuation can be dealt with fairly easily with a few repeaters or extenders, but it’s nice to know that you’ll get a signal no matter where you sit in the church.
It’s a bit ridiculous how happy I am to finally have high speed internet in a place I own, but then again, it’s no secret that I’m a huge nerd, so it’s no surprise that I don’t think so. After all, I like living in his 21st century, at least when it comes to connection speeds.
— J.S.
