Getting famous is all about who you know...

OK, so you live in the country. And you’re unable to swing the 10K it will cost to snake the village’s DSL line through the woods (underground) to your house. So you get a dish … and you get humbled really, really fast.

Especially if you have a teenager. Or two, like I do.

And they insist on downloading software upgrades, and songs, and movies and AAAAAARRRRRGGGGH! Because yes, there’s a limit to how much bandwidth you get to download at any time in satellite-land. Even with the best package I could find (SkyBlue) … that’s a jumbo 75 gigs per month of bandwidth. What can I tell you? There are a lot of users around here …. With high needs!

Reader Adrienne Webb posted this, regarding the restrictions on Directway/Hughes own bandwidth policy. I used to use them … and bitch about it here. Thanks for your further clarification Adrienne!

A new comment from “Adrienne Webb” was received on the post “Bad, bad Direcway/HughesNet” of the weblog “Suzanne Falter-Barns’ Painless Self Promotion“.

She wrote: “We have had Direcway/Hughesnet for about 4 years. At first, quite good, then they implemented their Fair Access Policy. They implemented another change to this policy in 2007. We have 3 Macs. Because of this policy, we are now unable to perform a system software upgrade, the Mac OS part of the upgrade is 480MB. After the 200MB limit is reached, the Mac Software update goes into slow mode, and eventually fails. Hughes suggests 1) using a download scheduler. There is none available for the Mac, or Apple’s Software update program. 2) Staying up until the witching hour of midnight, or 3) upgrading my account. At this point, it is unreasonable to expect me to use my internet service, but NOT to keep my system software current, download MS Office, HP printer, or Adobe updates; or download from itunes, podcasts, youtube or any of the other commonly used websites. And all because they won’t put money into bandwidth. I’m on the wait list for SkyHigh WiFi, and it can’t come soon enough for me. BTW, has anyone else noticed the Tech Support hold song (yes, there’s only one) has been the same ONE for at least 3 years??? (Spanish Lullaby). Surely that cassette tape must break soon!

Personally, I go to the local library with the fast DSL to do upgrades, FYI. (SFB)