Tag Archive | TDS
November 17, 2019  

First Thing I Saw On My PC Today — And It Made Me Smile.

by Anura Guruge

I got this, this afternoon at 3:17pm on Fast.com. It was Sunday and the Internet, by its standards, was not as busy as on a weekday.

Made me SMILE.

I am COOL.

TDS must be at least trying to deliver 1 Gig to the house. This is not bad. Given the overheads involved, this is as close to 1G that one should reasonably expect to see on Fast.com.

Related posts:
Search ‘1 Gig’.

by Anura Guruge

November 13, 2019  

Robert Charity Of ‘Charity Electric’, Barnstead — One Fine, Dependable, Competent Electrician Serving Central New Hampshire.

by Anura Guruge

Click images to ENLARGE.

Click to access the ‘Charity Electric’ Website … with contact information.

Robert Charity was recommended to I by a builder in Barnstead — the Dad of a friend of mine. When I had told him that I needed some wiring done, he, with nary a hesitation said: “Robert Charity, of Charity Electric, is your man“. He was dead right.

Robert did the external Cat 7 ethernet wiring I needed to complete my TDS 1 Gigabit installation.

Robert Charity was a delight to deal with from the get go. No messing around. He was responsive, prompt and a man of his word.

He does good work. Very careful, very diligent, very thorough and extremely competent. A son of an electrician (from Mass.) he sure knows his stuff. He is very reasonable too when it comes to pricing. I was very impressed and pleased.

He specializes in backup generators and IF I ever get one it would be from him and no one else.

So, if you are in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire and need an electrician call (better still TXT) Robert Charity at 603-833-9204.

Related posts:
Search ‘Barnstead’.

by Anura Guruge

November 6, 2019  

Successfully Adding A Samsung Galaxy S9 Phone To “Google Fi” Cellular Service.

by Anura Guruge

Click to ENLARGE.

It wasn’t that long ago, i.e., 6-months maybe, when ‘Google Fi‘ still only supported a handful of phones — all of the from Google or Motorola.

Not so anymore. They support a BUNCH of phones — including Samsung.

I have been with Google Fi for 23-months. When I got my Google Pixel 2 on Christmas 2017 it was a no-brainer to go with Google Fi. Google Fi was ideal for I in that I am NOT a heavy phone user — by any measure. I have been fine with Fi — but then again, as I just said, I am not a big phone user.

But, I am changing our household networking plans. Up until last week we had two Internet services — one from Atlantic Broadband and the other from TDS. This was for redundancy, if one went we could continue using the other. This was a good job since Atlantic Broadband proved to be notoriously unreliable. Ultimately I could not deal with anymore. I got rid of them and upped my TDS service to 1G. But, that means we have no redundancy. If we lose TDS we are dead in the water.

So, the plan is to go with unlimited data with Google Fi. However, the way their pricing is structured it makes sense to have as many lines on the service as possible.

Now that Google Fi supports Samsung we moved over my wife from ‘Consumer Cellular‘ to Google Fi. The goal is to move one or both of the kids too.

The first attempt at trying to activate the Samsung S9 was a spectacular failure. After about 3-hours it was finally determined that it was a bad SIMM card. Ordered a second. Came yesterday. Second attempt was the charm. No problem. But, initiation by fire.

Related posts:
Search ‘Google Fi.

by Anura Guruge

November 6, 2019  

The 1 Gig (i.e., Gigabit) Upgrade (By TDS) Is Finally Complete — Thanks To ‘Charity Electric’.

by Anura Guruge

Click images to ENLARGE.

Click to access the ‘Charity Electric’ Website … with contact information.

The TDS 1 Gigabit upgrade is now finally done (I think). TDS won’t do any external wiring and I needed some to finish the job.

Today, Robert the owner of ‘Charity Electric‘ (out of Barnstead, NH), came and spent 3-hours installing 100’ of flat, CAT 7 Ethernet cable and now I have a permanent, long-term connection between the TDS router on the 1st floor and the TDS Extender on the 4th floor (which provides a hardwired LAN connection to this PC via a TDS provided LAN switch).

‘Charity Electric‘ did a BANG UP job. Real nice work. Very tidy, professional, conscientious and painstaking. Good pricing too. Kudos. Nothing but good words. Highly recommended.

I was using a jerry-rigged Ethernet connection for the last 10-days. I had cables running all over the place on the 1st floor. Having this direct cable, 100’ maybe, appears to have made a difference. Look at the speeds I am getting. I am happy.

I got the Cat 7 cable from Amazon. Decent price. Came with gold connectors. Seemed a shame to cut them off. So, Robert, kindly, installed all 100′.

I am happy. Relieved to get this behind me.

Thanks Robert.

Thanks TDS.

Related posts:
Search ‘gigabit’.

by Anura Guruge

November 2, 2019  

I Guess I Must Be Getting 1 Gigabit To The House — SMILE.

by Anura Guruge

I got this, this morning on Fast.com. It was Saturday and the Internet, by its standards, was not as busy as on a weekday.

Made me SMILE.

I am COOL.

TDS must be at least trying to deliver 1 Gig to the house. This is not bad. Given the overheads involved, this is as close to 1G that one should reasonably expect to see on Fast.com.

Related posts:
Search ‘1 Gig’.

by Anura Guruge

October 30, 2019  

TDS Telecom’s Preferred ‘Speed Test’ Is That From Verizon.

by Anura Guruge

Click to ENLARGE. From: verizon.com/speedtest

Click to ENLARGE. ‘Fast.com’ from Netflix.

Yes, I know enough about speed tests to understand where TDS is coming from when they rely on Verizon for checking their Internet connection speeds.

Speed tests are fickle and subject to many variables — server speed and distance to the server being key among these.

If the server (i.e., computer), at the other end, being used for the speed test is slow (or congested) you are going to get slower results because the server is not pumping the data fast enough. Even worse on upload testing. Then there is the distance involved. Further the distance, the slower the results are going to be.

‘Speedtest.net‘, the original gold standard, now, invariably, tends to be on the slow side by 200Mbps (or more). It, as such, is only of use for comparisons.

I use ‘Fast.com‘ often. It is roughly in the right ballpark.

Verizon’s speed test was new to I, but I can understand why TDS likes it. It, more often than not, gives you the highest reading.

So, if you are looking for an Internet speed test you now have the scoop. Hope that helped.

Related posts:
Search ‘speed test’.

by Anura Guruge

October 28, 2019  

TDS Telecom Did The 1 Gig (i.e., Gigabit) Upgrade — Still Some Ways To Go; I Lost 20-Years Of Life Expectancy!

by Anura Guruge

I DO NOT get this all the time. This was the FIRST.

Click to ENLARGE. With http://www.verizon.com/speedtest

Click to access my post from last week.

My knee surgery in March was much, much less painful and stressful!

What a morning. Aahhhhh!

I knew it was NOT going to be easy and we are NOT done yet. I still need to get a Cat 6 cable installed outside. I knew that that was coming too.

Not funny.

And to cap it all, they were using my Drobo External RAID disk storage as an armrest! As always I was too polite to tell them to mend their ways. After they left I had to do a FULL data recovery/build on the Drobo. That took 3-hours!

The Atlantic Broadband router (and thus the network) is GONE — though I am still going to be paying for it till November 6, 2019. C’est la vie.

Because TDS had to install an extender, as I knew they would, we have 3 Wi-Fi networks. Wi-Fi is OK. Not great. OK.

Related posts:
Search ‘gigabit’.

by Anura Guruge

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