After much internal debate, Porter decided to invest in an air card, a device that plugs into his computer and allows him to connect to the Internet from anywhere. Well, make that anywhere with Cingular—oops, I mean the New AT&T—cellular service. Unfortunately, that excludes some important locations, like Granby, Connecticut. But it does include a great many places. I tried it out on the way home from the airport a few days ago, and only lost service once on the 45-minute ride, and that for no more than a second. The speed is not as fast as our normal broadband connection, but it's really not bad, especially if you use the accelerator option, which reduces the quality (and thus the downloading time) of images.
I foresee several uses of this new device in addition to the obvious business benefits that were the excuse for its purchase. The one that is emblazoned in large letters at the present time, however, is that the major lightning strike of about an hour ago, which took out our cable connection, has not left us without Internet and phone service. Ironically, I only two days ago I filled out a survey stating that Bright House's cable service has been very reliable and its customer service fine. I still don't fault the cable service—a lightning strike is bound to wreak havoc. But Bright House customer service can offer us help no sooner than next Tuesday! That really is unaccepable. If they were only offering cable TV service, that would be one thing, but when people are depending on you for Internet and phone service—especially phone service!—you need to be more attentive to repairs.
So I'm very grateful for our backup. Thanks to the air card, we not only have Internet access, but were able to connect to CallVantage and have our phone calls forwarded to Porter's cell phone.
With this coming on top of my own computer being in the shop—status currently unknown—I'm once again feeling a little nervous about our dependence on technology. There should always be a Plan B—and probably C, D, and E as well.
Bright House came through better than promised. We're back online, most likely because the problem was a general outage. Why they couldn't have told us that when we called, I don't know.
