The Affordable Connectivity Program is coming to an end. Native American communities will be hit the hardest. Rural areas are a challenge for ISPs – I know this, the business I'm in might be shutting down in the near future. I haven't made much money on it. No one can without subsidies. I am really sorry for customers who will be left with limited possibilities in the digital world here in Eastern Poland. But Europe is more civilized than the US – people here will suffer, but they'll survive. Native Americans got fucked by their government. Again. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/01/tech/tribes-congress-cuts-acp-internet-subsidy/index.html #RuralBroadband
It looks like our small #RuralBroadband business will be shutting down. Not our fault – bigger players are taking over the frequencies we've been using. Now working hard on making sure our customers have a soft landing. It was fun while it lasted.
Had a hunch that LTE reception would be better up the drive than where the antenna is currently, up on the chimney.
Our drive goes uphill, much higher than the house and, unlike the chimney, has no trees in the way, so is a bit of a no-brainer but somehow hadn't occurred to me.
So strung a bunch of extension cords together and took the router for a walk....
And yes, MUCH better reception even with just the cheap omni antenna that came with the router. RSRP up 20 DBm. Upstream speeds more than doubled to 85mbit. Several additional LTE cells now in range too!
So all that time up the ladder was completely unnecessary, aargh!
So, a new project for this year is to run power and ethernet up the drive!
I used to love tech support, but modern software and devices are so awful I find working on them daily quite frustrating.
(SkyQ and routers only manageable via an app - I'm looking at you mainly!)
I spent the last days mostly tending to an ill dog and a not very healthy #RuralBroadband network. Priorities are important. At least one of them is getting better.
Some of our #RuralBroadband customers use the company e-mail for complaints not directly connected to our services. Like "There are very few #mushrooms in the forest this year". What can I say? "Try turning the forest off, wait 60 seconds, then turn it on again".
Some of our #RuralBroadband customers think the more external antennas the routers have, the better they are. I'm thinking of ordering hundreds of small plastic sticks, for a few cents each, buying dozens of cheapest WiFi routers and super glue, gluing them together and selling them with a huge markup.
A nice patch of #lichen on a roof of a house where we had a #RuralBroadband installation a few days ago. Good to see that the air here is clean – lichens are usually a good indicator of air quality.
We had great support from our customers during today's #RuralBroadband installation. The one in front is a rescue dog, the smaller one is a typical #EasternPoland village dog, and they're great friends. Dogs: 10/10. SINR: 17/18, stable 20 Mbps. Pretty good for this area.
I guess I should start writing down things I've learned over the past few years running a local #RuralBroadband ISP business. Some of them concern particular technologies used right now and will be obsolete in a few years or weeks. But some things never change.
In the past few hot days we've had one router and two ODU power supply failures. The lesson: never put home-grade electronics in the attics of poorly insulated houses without air-conditioning. Fortunately the rains came and it's colder now. How I waited for those wonderful thunderstorms. Oh, wait.
This was 12 hours ago, on my way to work. The dirt road is so full of potholes you have drive slowly and are forced to enjoy the scenery of the Polesie National Park.
We were supposed to start early with #RuralBroadband installations, but it turned out that a public #library 20 km away lost its connection. This was not my business, but my technician knew about the problem, knew the place, knew how to fix it. We also knew that people responsible for fixing it wouldn't get there earlier than late next week. We lost an hour and a half, drove extra 40 kilometres, and had to tell one customer that they'd have to wait for their Netflix until Monday. But the library is back online.