Connectivity hell
On Friday, my ’Net connection started bouncing up and down every minute or so. Obviously this isn’t supposed to happen, and this is the second time now that it has. Unfortunately, working from home, I rely on my ’Net connection working.
To their credit, Plus.net have always answered the phone promptly and have tried to help, as much as they can. I don’t actually think it’s their fault though. Most likely (particularly as it happened on a Friday last time too) it’s one of BT’s engineers doing something on a Friday at our local exchange.
Anyway, I’ve pretty much made up my mind that I need an office. Extra expense, obviously, but at least it means I’m not reliant on my home broadband connection.
(It has got a bit better, in that it’s now up and down every five minutes or so, rather than every minute, but even so it makes things rather awkward…)
It seems to me that while most aspects of our computing resources steadily improve--processor speed, memory, bandwidth, display resolution, etc.--there are two that have scarcely budged: battery life and broadband reliability.
I can understand the battery situation, but what is it about connectivity that is so troublesome? In the past few years my bandwidth has doubled, thanks for that, but my connection reliability has not improved at all. I have very modest server needs, and the bandwidth in my home is ample to handle it, but I run a server in a colo facility simply because of the reliability factor.
I long for the day when broadband connections are as reliable as mains power or water.