18 April 2013

Intarweb Tubez, or the Lack Thereof

The 'net was off-line when I got to work this morning at 0700, so I contacted the I.T. guy. 

It seems that my company was paying for two cable internet connections: one shared by me and another fellow, and a second for my boss's staff on a different floor.

As a cost-cutting measure, we discontinued the first, and increased the speed of the second, to handle everyone's connections. It was a significant upgrade, too ... from 15 mbps to 50.

The upgrade connection took place overnight. So why was my line down?

Different modems, you see. The one I'm plugged into no longer had a signal, and it didn't occur to anyone to move the connection from this modem to that one.

Hmph.

Ah well, all's good now. My connection is already faster than before, and by tomorrow - after the modem adjusts to to the newly-spread load - it should be a LOT faster.

It reminded me of what things were like before the 'net was available. Not bad, just ... slower. But I admit to thinking of something to look up on-line about every four minutes, on average. The 'net has spoiled us all.




6 comments:

Cathy said...

" . . what things were like before the 'net "

That was another world . . . long, long ago in terms of transformative power . . . for good and ill. The "ill" part being my over-dependance on this technology. It would be beyond tough to lose it.

Keads said...

It is amazing that the tubez have gone from a dial up plaything to an almost indispensable tool in a very short time!

Rev. Paul said...

Cathy, you're right. But we're only one E.M.P. or infrastructure collapse from teaching everyone how we did it, back in the day. :^)

Keads, you're right - and I hope we DON'T have to go back to what it was like, before.

Well Seasoned Fool said...

I still miss the Dewey decimal system and cards. Once I could wire circuit boards for 80 column punch cards. You cold sort a lot of data in a short time with them.

Rev. Paul said...

WSF, there's always something inherently good about each level of technology, and moving to the next level isn't always an improvement.

Well Seasoned Fool said...

A firm I worked for bought a WANG system. I had enough influence to insist we run our old system in parallel with the new system for six months. In our seventh month, the WANG system went away. We never had a correct payroll, taxes were a nightmare, and the financials were a mess. Good concept, poor execution.