Vermonter.com

In my search for the holy grail of broadband Internet access, I thought I’d share some of my experiences along the way. If you’re considering the tranquility of northern Vermont real estate and need high-speed Internet for your work, beware! Many rural Vermonters do not have access to broadband services, where dial-up and/or reduced speed wi-fi may be the only choice.

What about satellite Internet?
When it comes to advice, the following people may not be your best source:
1. Your real estate agent may anxiously offer this wondrous solution in order to close the sale but be careful. He may offer to put you in touch with someone he or she knows who “has satellite Internet and really loves it!”. Unless the person he recommends uses Internet services for their work and spends a lot of time working on the web, their advice isn’t worth a grain of salt. Browsing the web and checking email are a world apart from working via your Internet connection.
2. The satellite installation company. Many of these companies are very familiar with satellite TV services but not very knowledgable about the Internet, Widlblue or HughesNet (formerly Direcway) satellite Internet. While they may do a great job of installing, some know little or nothing about bandwidth, latency or most importantly, the Fair Access Policy. Ask them what the Fair Access Policy is. If they can’t tell you, call someone else.

What is the Fair Access Policy and why is it so important?
Did you know that the amount of files you upload/download via satellite Internet are restricted by usage levels? Most people don’t and neither the satellite providers or installers are anxious to let you know about it either. In other words, if you upload or download a lot of MP3′s, videos, etc. the satellite provider will slow you down to a dial-up (or less) crawl. Usually, you will not be told about this until after you sign the contract and/or discover one day that your satellite speed has slowed to the rate of molasses on a cold, winter day.

Contract? What contract?
You’ll love this. You try out the service for 30 days, purchase the equipment from anywhere between $300 to $1000, depending on which satellite provider/service level you prefer. Then, you pay anywhere between $49 to $150 per month for the wondeful opportunity to access these services. However, according to the terms of the contract, you are locked into a 12 month (Wildblue) or 15 month (HughesNet) commitment. Decide to quit and you pay the full amount anyway. Same rip-off as cell phone and other Internet access contracts. The worst part is that if you get crappy upload/download speeds below what you sign on for, you have no recourse. So BEWARE and take advantage of the 30-day trial before you end up in a less than ideal year long (or more) commitment. Also, you should know now that the 30 day FREE TRIAL is NOT!!! You will have to pay Wildblue a $79 “uninstallation” fee and HughesNet will not refund 100% of your equipment fee either.

Educate yourself before taking the plunge into satellite Internet
Do a Google search on ‘Wildblue’, ‘Wildblue complaints’, etc. and see what others have to say. Visit the satellite provider’s websites and take a look at what is posted on their support forums. You’ll be surprised at what you see. A particularly informative website is Wildblue Uncensored! at http://www.wildblue.cc/. If you live (or plan to live) in northern Vermont, go to their message board and read about the many problems with Laredo: Beam 29 outages. This is the satellite that provides service to northern Vermont. Quite an eye opener!

Let’s face it, Vermont isn’t the best place to be if you find yourself divorced, single or just plain lonely. Dating can be more of a chore akin to a job interview than a pleasurable experience. Unlike college or high school, the job place may be mighty slim pickings for those past their twenties. There are agencies such as Compatibles who will help you meet others, singles cruises and a relatively new service called speed dating.
The online services can be helpful but more than a bit scary (for men and women alike). Beware of married critters pretending to be 20 years younger and single. They’re out there. Guys will want to watch out for those wonderful ladies seeking “a financially secure gentleman with an open mind, age not important”. In plain English, that usually means “I don’t care about you but I could fall in love with your bank account”.

Arranging a first meeting or date in Vermont doesn’t have to be a big mistake. NEVER agree to meet for dinner with someone you haven’t met in person yet. It may be the longest couple hours of your life, or their’s. A quick get together for a coffee at a local cafe is usually enough time to ward off the “fight or flight” syndrome if the going gets rough. Have fun and don’t take it too seriously. Single folks, you have my sympathy!

A Burlington area woman recently got an unsavory surprise while preparing her lunch. Imagine trying to eat healthy and get rid of a few pounds only to find a decapitated mouse head in your Lean Cuisine. That’s enough to put you off eating altogether:

Bridget Zurn prepares a quick lunch to accommodate her busy schedule. Zurn poked at the dish after it came out of the microwave, and says she found part of a pest — a mouse head mixed in with the salmon, basil, spinach and carrots.
“It kind of had a dead smell,” said Zurn. “I saw three hairs poking off the side and I looked at it and was like ‘oh my gosh’ what is that?”
“I flipped it over and realized right away that it was a mouse head and ran out of the kitchen yelling,” said Zurn.

So now we know the secret ingredient for weight loss. A treat like this guarantees you won’t want to eat for a week.

You can’t turn on your TV set in Vermont these days without seeing the ever present Rich Tarrant ads constantly in your face. Although I’m not a Bernie Sanders supporter, I’ve got to give him credit for not interrupting my daily dose of the “King of Queens”. I realize that all this goes along with the territory of running for government but don’t some people (like Tarrant) know when enough is enough?

First it was his unwelcome telemarketing campaign which prompted me to call his headquarters and mention that I was on the “no-call” list. To which is was told by his people in a somewhat stuffy manner, “we’re exempt from that”. Well, Richy you may be exempt but you just lost my vote! They seemed amazed that they had just lost my vote “because of a few phone calls”. Well, Mr. Money Bags, you may get away with interrupting my TV viewing but intruding upon my dinner is unforgivable.

I really get a kick out of the Tarrant signs. They’re everywhere, like dandelions in a field where manure has just been spread. What really takes the cake are the BIG signs. I guess those are for the vision impaired. Anyway, for those of us who can see clearly, it’s just another symbol of what big money can buy. Has it really come down to “he who has the most money and gets his face seen, wins”? Fred Tuttle is sorely missed these days. Mark Shepard is also shouting “hey, look at me” but he’s being pushed aside in favor of those with bigger pockets and thus bigger visibility.

As for Louie the Cowman…we know where he is and I’d vote for him before I’d waste my time on Rich Tarrant.

Third world countries have high speed, broadband Internet access. Many areas of Vermont do not. I recently moved to Westford, Vermont and bid a fond farewell to the thing I loved most about my former home in Jericho…cable broadband ‘net access. Oh but the real estate agent said satellite Internet is supposed to be pretty good. Well, maybe for the casual user but not for someone who works on the ‘net! Wildblue and others have a usage cap on the amount you download/upload. Exceed your limits and they slow you down to dial-up speed for a lonnnggg time. To make matters worse, the cost is about double of cable. Then there’s the latency issue, etc.

So what am I using to post this latest rant? A Cingular wi-fi WWAN card. Also testing a Verizon wi-fi card as well. Better than dial-up and you can login just about anywhere you can get a cell phone signal but it’s still not high-speed (that privilege is reserved for big city folks not little towns in Vermont, not even Burlington). The word from Verizon is don’t hold your breath waiting because they have no plans to upgrade the cards to full broadband access in Vermont. Though they do plan to continue making us pay just as much as the folks in NYC though for 1/10 of the service.
So that’s my solution…for now. If you want to live the peaceful life in rural Vermont the best you can do might be a wireless card, unless you want to slog through with dial-up. Of course there’s always satellite Internet but you pay a lot more to get a lot less and the damn thing conks out when it rains…which is just about every other day in Vermont this summer.

God, what I wouldn’t give for an affordable T1 line!