Wireless Business ISP

myDigitechnician is making its first ISP connection upgrade.

In the beginning there were bulletin boards. When the Chief Technology Officer of myDigitechnician was in grade school, he used external modems (1200 baud?) to connect to those bulletin boards. There were some games, and some sites with jokes and a number of other interesting nodes on the pre-net with which he became familiar.

Then there was dial-up internet connections at home. AppleIIgs in the early days, followed by a Micron Win98 machine. In those days, there were ten Netscape windows open at once so one could be reading one of the webpages while the other nine were loading. The ISP connection started out with limited amount of connect time and was soon upgraded to unlimited connect. That dial-up connection was relegated to back-up and shell-account access status when a basic residential cable connection with Road Runner was installed a number of years ago. That basic cable was the 'net connection with which myDigitechnician was launched, in addition to the old dial-up connection for those rare times when cable is out or Luke needs a specific dial-up service not available from remote locations as part of the cable connection.

Today, TDS Metrocom emailed myDigitechnician the signup forms to get a medium speed business class wireless connection. The connection is 2 Mbps symmetrical, with five static IPs. The symmetrical speeds and static IPs are what Luke W has been eagerly anticipating and waiting for. The TDS antenna is due west of our location about 1/4 mile away, so the signal should be reliable. Luke had experience with TDS wireless when working with a client who lives in Darboy, where TDS first trialed the service. The signed forms for wireless service will be given to TDS tomorrow. While waiting for the TDS Metrocom wireless to be installed and prove itself, the current Road Runner cable 'net connection will be left in place. Once the wireless is in operation and working well, the cable ISP service will be canceled.

The hope is for a seamless transition from cable to wireless. The best scenario is no noticeable difference, other than faster uploads and, possibly, a slight increase in download speed. As business picks up and a need is established for higher speeds, the system may upgrade to the next speed level. That current 'next level' is 4 Mbps symmetrical, but it would be nice if that level was 10 Mbps a year or two from now...

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