Sanguine Tenacious Tidings

September 13 blog

Cell phones!

Verizon services a wide network in this area. For years people have attempted to get DSL from Verizon to run their computers as well as there cell phones. Because the area is seriously rural and monetarily deficient (Northwestern Pennsylvania) many people have to run their computers off slow dial-up. In order to get faster cable, or a dish company you had to be in a middle income bracket or live in a large town or city.

Verizon has been expensive for a long time. We started in on their telephone service when they were General Telephone in 1971. The lines were deteriorating all over this rural part of the country. The upkeep on the lines was a joke. If we drove up our road and saw a verizon maintenance truck the joke opinion was that the phone was going to be out when we got home.

Still, we always paid our bill no matter what kind of service the company threw at us. We finally bought cell phones from tracphone sometime in the early 2000's (not sure of the date). We did this because Verizon did not get good coverage on their cell phones in this area. Sprint was better.

Then in 2013 dial-up internet was atroshius. We bought into a Verizon hot spot. Which gave us fast internet service. We were limited to the amount of Gigi bites we could use. More Gigs more price. We kept the home phone it is also wireless on the same plan. This year after 45 years of Verizon we dumped them. They wanted more money. First they said we were over 5 gigs so we went to 10. Then we were over 10 gigs so we were suppose to buy more. We decided we just are not rich enough to be their customers. Now we get our internet from satellite. We can use our kindles, download movies, and internet surf for less than the 10 g hot spot.

Some of my family has I Phones. They are nice. And, they can get apps for checking out restaurants, directions and lots of other ideas. However, our tracphones work everywhere. We buy as much time as we want it averages out to about 7$ a month. Once in awhile I get a call from the dentist. Mostly, the family keeps in touch through text messages. My phone is a 3g. It works on wireless and has USA calling and international if I ever needed it. Everything else I might want to do I can do on my kindle fire. Which also has telephone calling capacity. If I want apps on a phone I will have to upgrade my phone to an android. The app for keeping in touch with your home if it is all wired for protection from thieves sounds good.

I believe more technology for less money may be in the works for the USA as time goes on but I'm not convinced Verizon is the right company to supply to the main stream of the public.