Heaven thy name is Hughes net

We all know how I've cried & boo hoo'd and bitched & moaned over & over & over again about our sucky, horrible internet service.

Here's the story: We had a laptop access card from AT&T for unlimited data each month. We could do as much surfing as we wanted. It was on our cell phone bill as another phone line for $60 bucks a month. For those that don't know, AT&T's big thing is "3G". That's their super fast internet service for the cell phones. However....out here in a little ole 112 acre field 5 miles off the highway - there is no 3G. Which means basically we've had glorified dial up. And the glorified dial up has been getting worse & worse. Either that or we've been getting progressively more impatient. (Hmph, nope, not me!)

I called AT&T about when our contract was going to be up - 10 months. 10 long months of not being able to pull up a freakin' photo album on facebook! Oh, the humanity! And it was going to cost $100 big ones to get outta the contract. I also asked him how much 'mb' we used each month. He said, "Well, looks like you used to use between 1 & 3 gig each month. Now you're down to 500 mb." And I said, "Ya wanna know why? Because the service SUCKS!"

So I did something that I would normally never do. I decided to cancel my contract early. I know, I know...it's totally unlike me. But follow my thought process. 10 months left at $60 bucks a month = $600. $600 for something I can't even use. $600 for something that makes me wanna blow my brains out any time I have to use it. $600 is a lotta moolah for nothin'....

I had been doing research about another internet provider for people in the sticks. A co-worker AND one of our neighbors have it & they seem to love it. Hhhmmm, decisions, decisions. So I took a leap of faith. I called Hughes net & they were there the next day to hook.us.up.

Now, let me explain. It's a satellite internet service thingie. They install a dish like we have with our satellite tv. And then by magic (or an act of God...), it brings high-speed internet into a home that is a virgin to such things. But here's the bad part. This dish is on a tri-pod mounted to our roof. And it's kinda big. And when I pull in the driveway - this is what I have to see.... sigh...

I'm not gonna lie, I was NOT happy with the size of the dish nor the mounting on the roof.

But what I DO like? HIGH SPEED INTERNET BABY! Oh my word, my life has changed forever. I can upload pics to facebook in less than 5 seconds. I uploaded the 2 pics for this post in like 30 seconds. And I didn't even have to re-size them! This is like lightning fast compared to what I had to do before. Be.still.my.heart!

So far I'm happy with my decision to cancel the contract with AT&T. I hate spending that extra $100 for 'nothing', but I was going to get 'nothing' for $600 for the next 10 months.

However, you have to take the good with the bad. And this is what I find ironic about country living...It cost $400 (gulp) to have the dish installed. Before you fall outta your seat - know this... I will be eligible for a $200 rebate after I have the service for 30 days. So that helps. (I wonder if any of you city slickers had to pay $400 to have your verizon or insight or whatever to be installed? Sigh...) The package we chose costs $60/month like we were paying before...but there's a catch. We can only download 200 mb per DAY. We can upload as much as we want. Now, for those of you who don't know about all this mb & gig stuff - I will attempt to explain...

Mb stands for 'mega-bytes'. That's the 'unit' of measurement (if you will) for things that are downloaded from the web. A gb is a giga-byte. It takes approximately 1000 mb to make 1 gb. Kinda like converting ounces to cups or whatever. (Who am I to make cooking analogies, really?!) Anyway-we can only download 200mb per any 24 hour period. Which for most casual surfing is perfectly fine. We have a 'download allowance' bar that shows us how much we've used & how many hours we have until it re-sets.

So far, I'm super happy with the service. I am able to update my Premier software here at home which I was NEVER able to do before. Uploading is free so I can upload pics to facebook & the dog & pony show & it doesn't take away from our daily allowance. What's also awesome is that from 2am-7am downloading is FREE. For example, updating iTunes will suck up a lotta mb's. Sooooo when B-rad gets up at 4:30am, he can start the download & when I get up at 6:30, I can make sure it's done before the 7:00 cut off!