Not only was there no internet this morning, I couldn’t even connect to the Mifi, which told me I was having Mifi problems more than internet problems. I yanked the battery from it and restarted about 10 times and then I could connect to it. But still no internet. So I went up the hill, and good thing I did because I just made the deadline to pick up a nice amount of work for today.

Back home, I again tried to connect. The weather is crappy yet again (could we please have some heat if not sun?), lots of thick clouds, so I was going to give up. Then I had an epiphany.

My signal strength has always been more decent lower to the ground than higher! I had a generally more decent signal with the stubby antenna stuck on the truck roof than I ever did with the big antenna as high up as it can go.

So I brought the antenna to almost ground level. It’s stuck to the top step of my magnetic step ladder. And I am online. It’s not a great connection, so no picture of the setup, but I may be able to send my project to the client without having to get back into the truck. And that’s enough to make me less cranky today.

I’m wondering if the power line could be causing some interference? Or maybe the line of sight is downwards?

In unrelated news, I got home from the hill to find a ginormous bright yellow bag on one of the chairs by the door. Inside, was deliciousness: a kazillion stalks of fresh rhubarb. I’m finishing this assignment, them I’m off to make compote!

Bell Mobility set a trap for me and I fell for it. They lured me back because of their large mobile bandwidth package and now I’m stuck dealing with them for two years. The money isn’t the issue and neither is the technical service. Their ‘customer service’ is. I cannot believe it is still this bad almost 10 years after I stopped dealing with them.

It has taken all morning, but I am finally able to log on and see my account. And SURPRISE. Even though the account data on the Mifi is set for a 1st to 1st billing cycle, the billing cycle is actually 13th to 13th. So I thought I had reset to 0 yesterday and I am actually 9.5GB into the billing cycle with 11 days to go. Now, I know that 4GB will get me through the next week and a half as long as I block Netflix, but what if I hadn’t noticed that? I would have had overages.

Next, the chat rep I got the second time around (who was fine and quite helpful) insists that my current bill is due the 13th, not tomorrow, no matter what the website claims. He says that it says the 3rd so that people will pay by then and guarantee the payment lands on the 13th. We’ll see if he’s right.

The only good news is that I didn’t get charged the activation fee. I was told that I would likely be charged it and have to pay, then wait for another invoice or two to get a credit.

I’m so tired of their bullshit.

Wow, Bell Mobility is just as bad as it ever was! They are just unbelievable. I have been trying to pay my bill for over three hours now.

1) I received the bill today. It is due tomorrow. It takes 5 days to process online payments. The other option is for me to drive 70KM round trip to a strong phone signal to call them with a credit card number, which I do NOT want them to have on file. Officially. Non-officially, I could go borrow a neighbour’s phone, but I still don’t want my card number on file. Last time I did that, they helped themselves to money without authorization. Thank goodness Mastercard set them straight.

2) I can’t create an online account. I used the credentials given to me when I set up the account, but they don’t work. I keep getting asked to create a new, stronger, password. I do that and they say that I’ve entered the wrong password.

3) I tried email chat. The guy ‘hung up’ on me. And, yes, I was being very polite and non-sarcastic. He gave me canned answers and just left.

4) Next bill, I will have late fees. They will refuse to waive them saying that the payment delay was my fault because I should have known the bill was coming and paid it ahead of time. This is what what both the landline and mobility branches would say way back when. This time, I am going to let them send me to collections for the late fees as I know the collection agency is going to be much more rational. I’m keeping all my evidence.

5) No email support. This is so there are no logs of conversations that the customer could use against them.

Whenever I hear complaints about Verizon, I just want to laugh because they are soooo easy to deal with. Registering with them and paying my first bill took all of five minutes. They are always helpful and side with the customer. Bell still thinks it has the monopoly in this country. And when it comes to a decent mobile bandwidth cap, they are right. And the government protects them, not the consumer.

I’m at the top of the hill, but for the first time, I can barely do anything up here either, including log into my bank to pay Bell Mobility. This is one of those days I want to chuck all my electronic devices into a lake and go move into a cave.

Last night, my internet connection just died. There was zero service. I thought the problem might be that the laptop battery was low so the booster wasn’t getting enough juice. I therefore ran the engine to get an extra boost of power, but to no avail. A half hour went by and I gave up.

The connection really sucks this morning, but at least I’m online. Again, the RSSI number means squat. I was streaming Netflix yesterday with no stutters at -113 and -96 this morning hasn’t been enough to do anything.

I am beginning to suspect that the Mifi is playing a role in all of this because it keeps going dormant, as per its logs. My first thought was that it goes dormant because of a loss of signal… but it does the same thing up the hill where I have a very, very strong signal. So I did some research on the Mifi, and, yup, that’s a common problem with it and the issue is not related to signal strength. The suggestion is to try tethering it to the computer rather than connecting over wifi. So that’s what I’m doing this morning.

I can accept having a slow connection because of being in a marginal cell area. That’s fine. I’m used to slow internet now. It’s not necessarily a bad thing since I am on limited bandwidth. If I have to go up the hill a few times a week to download files, that’s okay too. I mean, it’s only 7KM round trip. But the Vulcan in me cannot stand capriciousness, that is a connection that runs when it feels like it with no rhyme or reason. The illogical of that really grates on my nerves.

Unfortunately, I can’t return my current boosting equipment without paying a restocking fee. I would then be without internet until I can afford something else. So I have to live with what I bought, even if it’s obviously the wrong solution for where I am. Wilson sells supposedly ‘low loss’ cable extensions, so next time I am near civilization, I will pick some up and then try to get the antenna even higher.

I need to ask someone to come and look at the Mifi screen for me while I’m on the roof moving the antenna around since moving it to the roof isn’t possible because the booster needs to be plugged in.

So that’s the scoop on the internet and likely to be all that I have to say about that, unless I magically find a sweet spot where the RSSI soars to -60. I’m not holding my breath either.

Oh, and look at that. My first Bell Mobility bill just landed in my inbox. It’s due tomorrow and I need to allow 3 days for processing the payment. It’s nice to see that some things haven’t changed.