One of the challenges of living in the country, and especially in the trees, is getting a fast, reliable internet connection. Until a few years ago, we were still on dial-up, if you can believe that. We finally got a satellite dish with Wildblue service, which some days feels just as slow as dial-up. What they don’t tell you about satellite is that they oversell the service so you’ve got too many people trying to squeeze into an itty-bitty information tube.

Now, Steve and I are not high-tech by any means, but we do like to surf the net, so a fast connection is a plus. Fast is a relative term in the country. We recently explored getting satellite and onto a Verizon 3G (soon to be 4G) connection when our builders accidently damaged our satellite cable. We completely forgot to warn them about where it was, so it was our fault completely. We found out that we’d have to pay twice as much per month as we’re paying now, and we’d get half the download usage. So, uh, no to that!

Last year the phone company put fiber optic cable up the highway that our road connects to, and we have hopes that someday we’ll be able to get DSL or something similar. Today we were listening to Radio Swiss Jazz over the internet connection through our stereo, and it was a treat. We got FAP’d by Wildblue last year about this time and realized that we never want THAT to happen again, so we tend to be judicious about our internet usage.

The hardest thing is when I go to visit my family in the big city, and I get on my computer to check me email and boom! It loads so fast! When it comes down to it though, I wouldn’t trade my comfy country life for a fast internet connection.

I think….