Posted on March 6, 2024 by John Scalzi
Because I live in rural America, I’m apparently forever cursed with slow internet speeds on a country road with no cable lines: for ten years they hovered at 6mbps, then a few years ago my DSL provider finally bumped it up to 40mpbs – still slow So pitiful. Mostly standard, but ultimately fast enough to watch streaming TV. But now, as you can see, my internet speed is faster! Like, eight times faster! Amazing speed!
… Whenever I’m at church, that’s where the (relatively) fast internet is. Because we are in the city! Where local cable TV providers lay their cables! At home, it’s still pretty cramped. But since the church is an office space, going to the church to work (and do any particularly large downloads that need to be done) is the point, and the reason we have internet there. Fun fact: Our internet speed at church can’t actually be as slow as our internet speed at home. They just don’t sell it. The 300mbps we got was the lowest speed they offer.
The internet is connected through a room that I believe once served as the church’s business office, tucked away in a corner of the basement. I was worried that the signal wouldn’t get through three floors of brick and concrete, but it turns out the router I got did a decent job of sending the signal; the signal was still solid and usable even at the farthest point from the router (the southwest corner of the balcony) , despite significant signal attenuation. I can handle the attenuation fairly easily by picking up a few repeaters/extenders, but it’s nice to know that no matter where I sit in the church, I have a signal.
It’s kind of funny how happy I am to finally have fast internet where I have it, but then knowing I’m a damn nerd, I guess that shouldn’t be too surprising. What can I say, I love living in the 21st century, at least when it comes to connection speeds.
——JS