Going mobile

Over the past few months, investigations have been carried out into the viability of using a mobile Internet Service Provider. The big sticking point is that there's no way accurately to gauge the amount of data used each month. Clearly YouTube will burn up a lot more data than most other websites. 

Having for years suffered at the hands of Windstream as my internet service provider, I have the great pleasure in announcing that tomorrow I am dumping Windstream and going over solely to a mobile internet service provider. This goes together with my forthcoming transfer from static rented accommodation to living full time in a motor home. 

What effect will this have on blogging, photography and business? Clearly there will be a lessening of time spent online - which is generally to be regarded as a good thing. There might even be a resurgence of photography which has been pretty dormant over the past 7 months or so.

The plan is to prepare totally for a mobile life. The mobile site (www.schoolbushome.com) is not intended to replace or succeed this site. This site is all about photography/business. Maybe, being totally mobile, the opportunities for truly great photography will now present themselves. It will be very interesting to document the transition from static living to mobile living.

There are a great number of things that have been considered but there are equally a great if not greater number of things that haven't even been revealed yet as issues. 

The first stage starts tomorrow - dumping Windstream. They're a DSL provider that provide fast-enough internet. It's not stunningly fast nor is it stunningly reliable. Mobile internet is going to be slower - rather akin to dial up. On the other hand, all the internet is used for is web searches, reading web pages and blogging. None of that is particularly data intensive.

It's not really possible to recommend Windstream. To sign up, it was a case of heading into the office. To cancel, it's a case of having to ring some wretched phone number. With luck it's not going to be as bad as Comcast. One of the things that really annoyed me with Windstream was that they provided a "free" phone number. As soon as I plugged a phone in, I had non-stop advertising calls all day, every day until I unplugged the phone. They also went and published my name and address with the phone number in their miserable little phone directory. That, of course, got published online so until I changed my address I was easy to find. I don't like being easy to find. It's a privacy thing!