I had ordered a DSL bandwidth upgrade last month, and my telco had sent me a new DSL modem (my old one had done its service for some years and apparently wouldn't be able to handle the new bandwidth). I hadn't gotten around to installing the new one yet, though. They had told me the switch would be day after tomorrow. But this morning I booted up my computer, and the router was claiming it couldn't get a DSL connection.

Thinking this was odd, I decided to go ahead and install the new DSL modem to see if maybe that was the problem.

It was:



LUDICROUS SPEED!

Best part is that I'm still paying the same price for it that I was before -- international flat rate phone plan (i.e. no additional cost for calls to North America and Europe), 16 Mbit DSL unlimited bandwidth and no time limit, for EUR 55/month. Still blows me away how different things are here compared to the old days of the government monopoly...

It used to be (when we first moved here almost two years ago) that my WLAN card could only see one network -- my own.

Then various DSL providers started offering free WLAN DSL routers, and they are multiplying like rabbits.

On my Airport WLAN submenu, I now see no less than six WLANs other than my own, and I frequently only see two out of four bars on the signal strength, even though I have interference robustness activated and the Airport Express router is in the same room. The laptops we have often barely get any signal at all if they aren't in the workroom. Used to be that I could work with the laptop on the balcony; now it can't even see the router unless I'm in the hall, maybe living room at best. If I want to work on the balcony again this summer, I may have to get another Airport router to boost the signal, thus adding to the overall problem.

Sheesh.