Mint Mobile: 4G vs 5G UC
This is a follow-up on an earlier post which was an observation of a change in the mobile data service I was seeing from Mint Mobile here in Houston. I had another occasion to be off-site today, although much closer…
Mobile Data Access: 4G vs 5G
I don’t get out much these days. At least not compared to years ago, when I was almost constantly travelling to and from various broadcast facilities. Nonetheless, based upon that past experience, in 2019 when I last ordered a laptop, I opted to get the 4G LTE wireless radio built in. It’s effectively the third person on our Mint Mobile family plan.
Truth is, I don’t use the service very much. But the carrying cost on Mint Mobile is so low that I keep it active. There have been times when we had internet or power outages lasting a few hours. In those cases, 4G embedded in the laptop has been genuinely handy.
Over the past year, I’ve also used it when going to offsite meetings related to my involvement with our local civic association. Such was the case last week. I was attending a meeting of Super Neighborhood 15 at the Historic Fire House on 12th Street. They might have Wi-Fi there. I don’t know. It has never even occurred to me to ask. As is my habit, I just power up and turn on the 4G.
Good riddance to Comcast & Xfinity
For many, many years we have been customers of Comcast. We had their consumer cable TV service, which was rebranded Xfinity. We also had Comcast Business Class internet access. We had both services a very long time.
At the time we installed them we were quite happy with both services. As a Tivo household we were compelled to have cable TV service. We adored Tivo. That effectively bound us to Xfinity.
Back in the day (2008-ish) Comcast’s DOCSIS-powered cable internet outperformed the only alternative, which was DSL. It was not without its quirks. We were compelled to switch to business class service because consumer service was badly degraded at certain times of the day. Basically, it slowed to a crawl when the kids got out of school.
In the early days, we’d occasionally hear from some salesperson who claimed to be our new account rep. They came and went. Every time they offered us faster service, it was for way more money. Occasionally they’d have some deal, but the special offer always evaporated if I wanted to use my own cable modem and router. Or if I didn’t want a bundle that included their voice service.
Eventually, they stopped calling on us. We’ve not been bound to a contract since 2012. We’ve just been grandfathered in on a legacy “Deluxe 60/10” service that cost around $100/mo.
Tivo is the glue
We’ve been a Tivo household since 2001. We currently have a Tivo Roamio Pro with 6 tuners. It’s on the main TV in the house. Other TVs are connected to Tivo Mini’s and a Tivo Mini LUX. A total of four TVs can access any content.
Tivo is still the superlative DVR. Nothing else comes even close. Some cable and satellite providers licensed Tivo tech for their own use. Their own DVRs are absolutely lame in comparison. The fact that they could not match Tivo in 25 years is, I think, testament to the fact that they just didn’t care about the user experience.
Our cable TV bill was over $200/mo. If it were not for our investment in, and admiration of Tivo, we would have long ago dumped Comcast.
How-To: Filling in a Wi-Fi Dead Spot on a Budget
For the past year I’ve been on the board of our local civic association. I did this to get me out of the house and more engaged in the local community. As a result I’ve become more aware of some of the IT issues that typically confront our neighbors. Beyond dealing with dastardly ISPs, one of the most common problems is poor Wi-Fi coverage throughout a home. When the question came up again just recently, I thought it worth collecting my thoughts on the matter and sharing them here.
Preface: The Wired
This is, for me, a statement of philosophy. Wherever possible I prefer wired, Ethernet connections to devices on my network. Wires are inconvenient to install, but are extremely reliable, and with the exception of intrusion by the occasional hungry rodent, last a very long time. If you want things to work all-the-time, every time, wired is the way to go. Period.
BBC Erroneously Reports "Webcams used to attack Reddit and Twitter recalled"
As you may be aware there have been a few rather high-profile DDOS attacks in recent weeks. They all have one thing in common…they leverage common network attached devices that have been compromised, or at least left unsecure. Many of…
Q1-2016 Broadband Update: Bye Bye Global Capacity, Hello Tachus!
According to Bob Dylan, “The times they are a-changing.” I certainly hope so. I’ve made some changes to our broadband service hereabouts, and I’m hopeful about a new alternative. The details of these two things are worth sharing.
I’ve long held that someone in a technology business, who works from a home office full time, should have redundant forms of internet access. If you’re going to have redundant access they should use different modes of connection. That way a single errant truck or backhoe doesn’t take out both of your services.
This belief was strengthened by our own experience in events like Hurricane Ike in 2008. We lost Comcast service for several weeks, falling back to our stodgy old DSL circuit. The DSL meant that we had IP phones running the morning after the storm, when even cellular service was down, amazed and confounded our neighbors.
Our first broadband service to this location was a DSL circuit. The name on the bill changed numerous times. What started out as Sprint Ion devolved into Earthlink, then Covad, Megapath, and most recently Global Capacity. The data rate was slow, but reliability was high.