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Saturday, August 10, 2019

Mr Murphy strikes again!



LET me tell you a little bit of Prince Edward Island, Canada.

About 155,000 people live on the island located about 14 km (9 M) off the mainland.  PEI is a bit of a sleeper province, many don't know that we typically have one of the steadiest economies in the country.  A strong sea food fishery, farming, civil service, small to big business makes it the sleeper it is.  Of course being a large sandbar, we have some of the nicest beaches that I have experienced anywhere in the world in my travels.

Our temperature is fairly mild year around, and often we are sheltered from the fiercest Atlantic storms by mainland Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

What we don't have is decent rural internet.  Back about 10 years ago when I was traveling Europe I was amazed how how well the continent was serviced with what Europeans call, "wee-fee" (WiFi) Even the smallest little burg in the French Alps, had good quality coverage.

I live about 45 km as the crow flies from our capital city, and our nearest town is 7.6 km by road or about 4 km drone distance. And... here we have an internet routed (no pun intended) on equipment laid in the 70's and 80's

It's bad enough 9 months a year, but when the summertime cottagers move out to the country, for the warmer months, our I/N drops from barely usable to utter ridiculous.  Many said cottagers are barely much farther out of town than I am right now from Kensington, our nearest location with high speed I/N.

This time of year my download (that's a joke) speed is less than 1 mbps and my upload speed is surprisingly around 1.3 or so.  Trying to read a net related story and we are frustrated by continual buffering even if no video is supplied.  Watching anything streamed makes me feel like tearing my hair out, and at 65 yoa, I can't spare any.  Millions of $$ have been given to BELL to improve our service but if you talk to tech people, some are brutally honest... one even told me my grand kids won't see it.

I understand this isn't a unique to PEI issue, all Canada is sub par (we're two steps below sub par) while the Federal Liberals are promising to spend dump $$$$ truck loads across the county, but if you believe much of that money will actually hit the streets... you'd also believe that our Prime Minister and the ethics department are on a first name basis!

It makes me very frustrated when on a beautiful summer night tonight, I begin a blog only to be thwarted by our Internet services. I have tried to download a half dozen pictures and 8 hours later in my morning, I am greeted by a stuck machine.

Why am I telling you this?  I guess I feel an obligation to at least explain what the problem is.


PING

16
ms

JITTER

2
ms

DOWNLOAD

1.1
Mbps

UPLOAD

0.4
Mbps

Bell Aliant

Halifax, NS

Bell Canada

142.68.109.114


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