More years ago than I wish to contemplate, my bride and I decided to do what we could to set ourselves up to “retire” here in Southern California. We looked around at several “senior” communities and fell in love with the one in which we now reside. There was one very significant negative for me, and it came very close to making me blackball the choice. That issue was that the only internet service available was dsl. Not only was it limited to dsl, it was limited to AT&T dsl. I did not want to (and still hate) having to do business with AT&T. But we loved the community and we moved in and except for the frustration of dealing with AT&T, our experience has been excellent. And now . . . . they are digging up the streets, putting in conduits and by about middle of January 2013 we should be completely up to date with Cox fiber-optic high speed access. It is my understanding that they will run fiber to the community and high-speed coaxial cable right up to each home. It can’t possibly happen fast enough for me.
Thank goodness, AT&T could not see their way clear to bring new service into the community. That decision was made despite having petitions signed by about 400 of the 500 residences stating that they would take some level of service if it was made available. Moving at the speed of a half-dead land tortoise, AT&T managed to slow the whole process down with delay after delay until they finally said, “no thank you.” Cox, I’m lead to believe (I was in no way involved in the negotiations), was courteous, professional and reasonably prompt. They looked at the opportunity and said yes, negotiated the details and the work is now under way.
A whole new world will be available to my home office now. And it is just in time. I have been busy “moving my business to the cloud.” The cranky, slow and unreliable dsl connection has been making me work slower at this project than I might have. I move significant sized files around, backup my PCs on-line and of course need to be online for website, blog and social media maintenance.
We’re still no closer to retirement, at least not by the old standards of retirement. Yet if this new service is even only half of what I hope for it to be, I will now consider our move to this community to have been one of the best “major decisions” we’ve made. I expect our video calls with our grandson in New England will be of much better quality than in the past. I expect high definition TV will be much better than it has been with the old system here in the community.
No doubt, I will need to negotiate with my bride (who is also my CFO) on just what level of service she will allow. The negotiation may well hinge on the better video with Isaac and what TV service she might want for that nice internet connected Sony TV she has! I know she wants to be able to record her shows (which now she cannot.) Let the games begin. Meanwhile, I drool in anticipation.