New Year, Same Old, 12, 13 & 14. Internet Problems.

My internet connection is driving me nuts. Today, I called about changing to fiber. It turns out that the company that hung the cable along our road is the old monopolistic Telefónica. I was advised to take the offer by their lower-priced company, O2, which includes 300mb and a cell phone line. That way, they would come faster, (instead of the wait of up to a month with another company) and I would then have the hook-up to later change to another company that would be cheaper. 

Um, no. That sounds a lot like extorsion. I have always said that I would never make a contract with any branch of Telefónica precisely because of things like that. Besides, there is little cell phone coverage around here by them. The only infrastructure they have updated is the fiber cable they strung up. Ever since over fifteen years ago, when we bought our first cell phone, they have been affirming that they were updating their coverage. It's never been done. The person I was talking to said that the lack of coverage had probably been fixed. But then he looked at the map, and saw the spotty coverage in our village. Nope, it hasn't been fixed. 

So, the only option seems to be a regional company, and only their offer of fiber. The problem with them is that they lock their customers into a year's contract. At the end of that year, they have to negotiate the monthly fee. If they don't, the company could raise the fee by up to ten euros a month. It's no wonder the telecom companies are the industry with the most customer complaints. 

In the meantime, I either have to grab a stray moment where I can pull up a web page to write, or do it on my phone. I hate to write extensively on the phone because the phone sometimes understands a different word from what I want, and the typos are impressive. 

On the pandemic front, the entire region has been bumped up into a high risk area. That means that hostelry will close everywhere at six in the evening, curfew has been bumped up to ten at night, stores close at nine thirty at the latest, no one can get together with more than three friends, and all the major cities are closed. The novelty in the closed townships is that they will now not share closure. For example, neighboring townships that were closed, like Noia and Lousame, or Pontevedra and Poio, could have people travel from one to the other. Not any more. The bad news is that the number of contagion overall is growing, and growing fast. The good part locally, is that in our township the number is going down, bit by bit.

The rest of the country is doing even worse. There have been some regions that have asked the central government to impose a short lockdown. The weather, after the magnificent snowfall in the center and east, has been frigid in most of the country. It's ideal weather for viruses. And for falls. Many trips to the Emergency Room in Madrid have been for broken bones because of falls. 

As to the death of democracy, Trump has been impeached for the second time. But the Senate Majority Leader, which is still the Republicans until the two Democrat senators recently elected are sworn in, says that there will be no trial until the nineteenth of January. He's trying to look good with both crowds. There are rumors and knowledge going around that there might be problems this coming weekend, as well as on Inauguration Day, both in Washington, D.C., and in all fifty states. Maybe this time, things won't get as far. Maybe.

Who said they wanted to live in interesting times?

Life continues.