The gîte in Vindelle, outside Angoulême, was equipped with a cellular router for internet access. I had never heard of such a device, but it was easy enough to connect to it and get to Google Maps and Wikipédia. After eating lunch on the patio the first morning of our stay, I took my laptop out there to do my research, and we got Walt set up with my 10-inch Android tablet to watch the tennis tournament. Everything worked fine for about an hour and then the internet connection was, we thought, dropped. We soon realized we still seemed to have a very slow internet feed. The little cellular router hadn't actually failed but had slowed down. I logged on to the cellular router web site and saw we had received a notification that we had used up 100% of the router's data plan and had been temporarily switched to a very slow connection that didn't support watching TV or uploading photos.
I called the gîte owner and asked him if this happened frequently. He said no, it's never happened before. He said he'd call the phone company and see if he could buy some more data capacity. When I took the dog out a while later, I saw the owner again. He came over and told the me the phone company had said they could add some gigabytes to his plan, but it would take about a week for them to kick in. That didn't do us any good, because we were leaving the gîte on Friday. Tant pis, I said. It's not your fault. He said he had had a couple from Wales as guests just before we arrived, and they brought three teenagers with them. Each had a cell phone or tablet and they seemed to be using them all the time. They had probably exhausted the data allowance on his account.
A while later I went out for an early evening walk with Tasha and there were the gîte owners again. They wanted to tell me they had driven over to the phone company's store in Angoulême to see if they could get some help from employees there. No problem, they said. They added the gigabytes to their gîte account (for a fee). I told him we would pay for extra GBs, but he wouldn't hear of it. He said it would take a couple of hours for the cellular router to start working at high speed again. It took a little longer than two hours, but by the next morning, we were back up and running at full speed. We had no more internet problems from then on.
Sorry I had to be coy with you all last week. Walt and I didn't want to write about the fact that we had left our house in Saint-Aignan empty for five days while we were traveling. You can never be too careful (maybe I should say "too paranoid"). Now you know the true story of our internet woes last week.
Oh, sure! It makes sense not to advertise that you were away from the house.
ReplyDeleteWhen we stayed at the lovely gîte at the château, near you, the Wi-Fi service that they provided, was a portable hot spot. The only place it seemed to get service, though, was out front, or in one chair in the living room :) Fortunately, we had ordered a (more powerful) hotspot for the week, that we had with us, but it made me realize that I would take with a grain of salt any hotel or gîte’s mention of providing Wi-Fi. One of our hotels also had very weak and spotty service. I suppose it might also have to do with the massive stone walls in these buildings.
I'm used to unlimited data on the internet. Before, it was DSL. Now it's fiber. But we don't have to worry about how much we are uploading or downloading. About the walls, maybe. But I think most people are pretty clueless about internet access and how well it should work.
DeleteHa here in the NC woods we have a grand total of 5 mbps which just got "boosted" to 10 !!
ReplyDeleteThe gîte owner said his cellular plan allowed 20 GB per month, and that he paid 25 euros a month for that. But on the telephone company web site I saw that 25 euros a month would pay for 200 GB. So I don't what the real deal is.Walt pays 10 euros a month for 60 GB of date plus free calls and text messages within France.
DeleteNot "date" — data.
DeleteOnce you wrote that you had been on vacation, I assumed the computer problem was just a cover-up for your brief trip. I totally agree with you about not broadcasting your trip. As you explained, there really was a computer glitch! I pay $90/month of unlimited service and just $15 of that goes for my basic cable which includes only local TV stations and the PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). There is no other choice here except Comcast so I am stuck with that price.
ReplyDeleteDo you have a land-line phone? That can be expensive. Our friend who lives in Auburn CA ditched her land line and went cellular with a smart phone. At the gîte last week there was no land line. You have to take your own phone if you want one, but almost everybody has one these days. Those cellular modem/routers are a good deal for people who live in remote places where there is no DSL or fiber connectivity. They can get expensive though.
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