We've talked about getting rid of Dish for some time. We were actually going to do it two years ago, but ratcheted back to the Flex plan instead. I can't complain, since that's how I started watching Law & Order: Criminal Intent regularly. But, again, a lot of the reason why we kept Dish around was to have something decent for Snowy to watch. Even if he was just a bird, I didn't want his brain fried by talk show crap and the other rubbish that's on the Flex channels like A&E and TLC. That's why we left WEtv or Sundance on most of the time: he watched LOCI or NCIS or "the mothership" Law & Order.

A week or so ago we got a postcard from Earthlink saying they were going to be offering fiber. Now we started out with Earthlink back in 1996, as GEnie was winding down, and dial-up (further annoying my mother, who could never reach us by phone since we spent evenings online). We went to DSL to keep out of her hair, and converted over to broadband in 2018 (a multiday clusterf*ck due to rotted wires and incompetent techs. Broadband was giving us a nice, steady 35-45 mps, and we really had no trouble with any of the channels when we got a Roku box to aggregate everything we subscribed to, like Netflix, Britbox, etc. But 350 mps? Up and down?

As usual, they tell you the install will be "an hour or so." This actually took most of the day. The technician was competent, but had to be very patient. He started out putting a cable through the wall, and then hitching it to the router. Problem #1 was now that the router was on the opposite side of the room. We like to have the desktops hardwired into the router because (1) it's faster and (2) even though it's secured, I don't like my online banking bouncing around on wireless signals. When the tech finally did get everything hitched up, the television, plugged in, of course had no trouble, nor did James' desktop, which is basically the same model as mine, have a problem hitching right up to the wireless; my desktop refused to get half the signals, as did the laptop. Plus we were supposed to use the information e-mailed to us to sign on to the fiber app, where we could change the name of our router, change our password. I was never able to get into the app. We finally ended up stringing a network cable along the floor under the sofa and under the clear plastic chair pad to my computer because it would not connect to stuff I needed, like the uploader for my website, Amazon, my bank, Nationwide's site, the water bill site...ya know, important things. And once again James couldn't access the printer.

So after Hair Day, we drove out to MicroCenter and bought a network switch. Now both desktops and the printer are networked on cable and now I can get to all of my links in Firefox (yes, the cable is still across the floor, but very little of it is exposed).

I also had a problem getting the DVD recorder and the Chromecast to work. The Chromecast seemed completely dead and the DVD recorder was giving me a U99 code. It was fine when I watched Little Drummer Boy in December.

The plan right now: I get some stuff dubbed off the DVR, cancel Dish, get Philo (which is $25 rather than $80whatever and gets us everything but TCM, which I will miss), probably subscribe to Peacock's low tier. I already canceled our Disney account via Verizon and got the Hulu/Disney/ESPN triple package (not that we're going to watch ESPN, but they didn't have a dual package Hulu/Disney sans commercials and for some reason the Roku won't do Disney with commercials. Still think a little about AMC+ so I can see Dark Winds, but I haven't watched Those People since they canceled Remember WENN and don't know if I want to fall in with traitors even 25 years later.

In other news, James got a new pair of orthopedic boots. He gave in and instead of getting lace-up boots he got velcro fasteners.

Labels: health, internet, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:13:00 PM

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