The fiber optic upgrade in the resort – a project which has caused nothing but construction annoyances to date – is now beginning to pay off. As one of the few summer residents, I am one of the first to actually experience the new service. I have to say that it was worth the annoyances. Internet speed is vastly better (the vendor claims 10x faster but I think it is more like 3x) and I now get 69 cable channels rather than the 40 that were provided previously. And because the old signal was so poor I only got about half of those reliably. I am having some difficulty with 10 of the new channels, so the net upgrade to date is 10 to 59. Not bad. I am pretty sure I will get all 69 eventually.
Including ESPN! I will now get to watch some sports! Golf Channel too!
The installation was pretty smooth, but did have a few bumps. The new router was put in the shed, like the old one, but low on the wall rather than high (because the fiber optic line was too short to reach the high shelf). And the shed door started to fall off its hinges while the technician was coming and going. I don’t think he was the cause, just the final straw. I suspect the door had some hidden damage from Hurricane Ian 10 months ago. In any case, I put new screws in two of the hinges to fix the “falling off the hinges” problem. But the door didn’t close smoothly or latch at all. Again, not the technician’s fault. The shed had been settling on the corner where I neglected to put a solid footing and that skewed the door enough to create the problem which probably was masked for months by loose hinges. In any case, I have been meaning to raise that corner and finally did so today. About half an inch. The door closes smoothly now and latches.
There was one minor installation-related problem. I asked the technician to run the fiber optic line under the shed skirt if possible. That was either not possible or (more likely) fell into the “custom installation” category. In any case, the request was ignored. So I had to cut a hole in the skirt. The blemish is barely noticeable but will be one of those things that will annoy me forever.
Bottom line: I got upgraded WiFi and cable TV with minimal disruption. And I got my shed leveled again after months of procrastination.