When you just look back

In the previous post, I wrote that the fly in ointment of my current living place is the Internet access, which is embedded in the room. The amount of up- and download datasize is limited up to 4 GB, which is, for me, next to nothing. After the limit of 4GB, the speed is decreased that you even hesitate to make a Skype (voice) call. So I knew I had to do something.

At first, I asked them if I could have a contract with a third-party ISP for DSL. The answer was negative (I don’t think that’s not possible even technically..). So the option I had (at least at that time, and now) was to have a private contract with a mobile phone company.

I went to the city, and had one contract signed. It was USB-type modem, of which I was told by the clerk that I didn’t need to introduce any external software and it could run on MacOSX. Well both were incorrect ; you need to have a Windows operating system or MacOSX prior to Snow Leopard (which is exactly what I’m using now), and you had to install a software even on a Windows machine, which I absolutely hate (since it could be another headache seed of mine..). The result : I went back to the shop, and revoke the contract (nice thing was they only charged me for one day – not even the activation cost).

So the next place I went to was another mobile provider. They had an external hardware, which can be a wireless LAN access point and gateway to the Internet. I’ve tested in the shop that it works with my MacBook Pro (via wireless LAN interface) and the speed is okay (at least I could watch the YouTube video real-time).

The nicest of all was that the data plan was flat-rate, which wasn’t the case for the previous one (although this flat-rate means that I had to pay a bit extra). Given the amount of the data I’d like to consume, upload, and waste from / to the Internet, it seemed to be the best option I had (and I still think it is).

Of course, the connection isn’t all that stable, if you compare this with the DSL or FTTH. But it is at least much more satisfactory compared to what I had before. The last thing I did was to revoke the Internet access contract to my room and to remove my AirMac Express from the LAN outlet (I don’t know what I should do with it now..).

The contract of this mobile-WiFi is fixed to 2 years. I do not know what I would do after that. Hope is that there would be a better option available for me, or I decide to move to somewhere else, where I could have another type of (and hopefully faster and more stable) Internet access.

Yes, I am addicted…