On the road again

Just watched my first ever Youtube (or for that matter any other) video stream without a single break! Canned Heat - On the Road Again and promptly Bliped it.

The broadband & telephone supplier change (eventually) worked. We have been on 0.384Mbits/s for years, Telecom not having any means of providing a faster service. End of 2012, parish council with the help of Bavarian State funding had a company install a new system which continues to use the old 2 copper wires that run to the house but could offer 3, 6, 20 or 50 Mbits/s. At least so they claimed, so taking a risk, I went for the 6Mb option. Had to wait a year (thanks to the worst practices of Telecom).

This morning at 6:00 am the phone rang twice - Anon and hung up. This went on every 15 minutes until 9:00am when I left the house. It was Telecom checking if the new provider had opened up the line. At 10:00 I returned to find the phone dead and so started to reprogramme the router with the new access data. Failed miserably despite hours of trying with handbooks, mobile surfing and calls. The router just wouldn't have it. I had been warned by the new supplier but I wasn't prepared to accept giving up a technically good router and having to buy a new one. At 17:00 I gave up and drove to Memmingen and bought the biggest router I could afford which can also cope wilth 20 & 50Mb, if I should get greedy for more.

After walking dogs in the dark somewhere on route, coaxed Jeep back home, got the horses to bed, warmed up left overs and at 23:15 hooked up the new router. 5 minutes later I was on-line and the phone worked too! Couldn't really believe it and quickly did a speed test - came in at 6.040 Mbits/s!

Angie hasn't seen it in action as she had to go to bed - gets up at 4:45!
Will have to post her journal for her. Think she will be over the moon as she often streams. Wow. Can now try joining Dave at BlipFm and watching Emmy's Biscuit, Hero and Beat do their performances without stuuuttttttteeeeerrrinnngg.

Not sure if the German router brand is known in the UK - nice name. The are probably the top router manufacturer here.

Hats off to smart-dsl.net for their set up which is as far as I know only done in very rural areas with no chance of getting any other decent broadbrand service. It's more expensive than the broadband offered in urban areas, but not more than Telecom are charging now for their miserable service.