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Mobile Internet Down Under
Anonymous Coward writes "A truck, a sat dish and a sunburnt country. When you absolutely positively need to connect to the Internet, why not carry your own broadband connection with you? One Aussie guy and his wife are doing just that -- packed up the lot and have gone on the road, so far roughly 3000km. He says 'Of course nothing is simple. The salespeople were convinced that I couldn't line up the dish -- it took me about an hour to figure out and now roughly takes about ten minutes each time I set up. They told me that the wireless gear wouldn't talk to the modem, they told me that my Debian workstation wouldn't be supported, they told me that the BOC wouldn't talk to me, they told me that I needed training, they told me that it wasn't done and it wouldn't work, they told me that I'd void my warranty, they told me so many stories..'"
Sounds like this guy dealt with the modern day saleman. When people don't know the answer to your questions, it is easier for them to say "can't be done" than "I don't know, let me see if someone else does". At least he had the initiative to figure it out himself, though.
We even have broadband, despite how expensive Mr Richard Alston might have thought it was.
Funny how when someone tells you it can't be done, we often become more focused in getting it done and proving them wrong.
They told me that the wireless gear wouldn't talk to the modem, they told me that my Debian workstation wouldn't be supported, they told me that the BOC wouldn't talk to me, they told me that I needed training, they told me that it wasn't done and it wouldn't work, they told me that I'd void my warranty
Now really, what did you expect? Companies hate tinkerers. They don't like people who use their products in ways they were not intended for. They just want someone to buy their product and use it in the most boring way possible.
Hell, this morning I needed some one-pound coins to do my laundry but I was all out. So, I went to a vending machine and started dumping in my small change until I had one pound of credit and then hit the change return button. Bingo! A nice, shinny, one-pound coin. After about five min of this, the service guy for the machine came over and yelled at me to stop. "That's not what the machine is for." Well excuse me for doing something different.
Lie. That's what I always did with Qwest. Their support constraints were amazingly stupid, so I'd just lie about what I had. The OS wasn't a problem, actually, since I run 2000 and they do support that. However they did NOT support the fact that I had a network. Now this might seem reasonable until you realise that I had professional class service. I had my own subnet of 8 static IPs and an external router (provided by them). Now any reasonably intelligent person would assume that the purpose of all this is to have a network of computers. Seems to make little sense to plug the router into one system and assing all the IPs to it.
Well, they steadfastly maintained it wasn't supported and I'd need to plug the router right in to my computer. This was not only not really possible (router was ina different room) it was outright fucking stupid. Since I could access the router via telnet, which went over my internal network, I could verify that it was NOT the problem. Also, I could ask the router what was the problem, and it told me that I lacked a DSL dignal. This I tired to explain to them to no avail. So I began lying about not having a network. This never stuck any of them as odd.
Next we got to the router reconfiguration. Every time they wanted me to blow away my router's config and redo it from scratch. I again tried to explain that the config had not changed. It was working with the config on it, and then it stopped working. I hand't changed anything, I was the only one with the password, therefore hte config was NOT the problem. Also, again I tried to explain that the router was telling me what was the problem (I was getting no signal since the DSLAM was broke). Again, no avail, so I simply lied about keying in their config they read to me. I wasn't, of course, because it was not only a waste of time, it was the wrong config, it setup a router for NAT operation whereas I didn't do that.
After dealing with this, I skipped the arguing and went straight to the lying with subsequent steps. I was asked to do retarded things like install a TCP/IP for a dialup adapter (yes, really) and so on. I'd claim I did them, and then let them try the next thing. Eventually they expended their little script and I got escelated.
Now the real solution, if you can do it, is to get on an ISP not run by retards. I've been happy with Speakeasy. They are happy to treat me like I know what I'm talking about, and answer my questions in a straightforward way. I can call and ask for information or status and get it, without some argument. Also they seem to be competent and can troubleshoot in an intelligent way.
However, if your ISP is dumb, and most are, just lie about your setup. It'll save you a lot of time.
You mention having to setup a mount and then lifting and carrying the dish to it. Why not put the mount on a trailer and set the trailer up with legs to steady it. You then attach the dish to the mount and add some sort of fairing or enclosure for wind and precipitation protection. To set up you park the trailer, drop the legs, level if necessary, remove the fairing and then start your alignment procedures. It eliminates the manhandling.