By Phil Trubey
December 11, 2020
How did you fare last week during the power outage? Were you prepared? I wasn’t and ended up at Home Depot at 6:30 in the morning buying one of their last portable generators. But I got it up and running and had glorious fast gigabit Internet. Yes, RSF Connect performed well during the power outage without skipping a beat.
The same cannot be said for other Internet service providers. AT&T for one ended up having to place and maintain hundreds of small portable generators in local communities since their non-fiber based system relies on powered electronics in the field (ours does not). Cable based Internet service providers like Cox, Spectrum and Orion were in the same boat. If you are on one of those systems, did you have any service interruptions last week? Let me know.
December 31st Deadline
RSF Connect’s Internet service provider, Race, will stop taking orders for building conduit from the street to your house on December 31st at the stroke of midnight. You can still order new service after that date, but you will be responsible for hiring your own contractor to trench and place conduit.
Subscribers
We are up to 891 RSF Connect subscribers now. As you can see on the chart below, we have followed the classic adopter S curve and are now topping out. People will still connect to RSF Connect as houses get bought and sold, but adoption will be slower going forward. This is probably the last time I’m going to update this chart.
Generators
Speaking of power outages, this is as good a time as any to point you to an article I wrote last year about generators. Whether you opt for a portable generator, a whole home one, or rely on solar panels and batteries, it has become increasingly obvious that we all need to plan for regular power outages that span days at a time.
A two hour blip is just an inconvenience, but 24+ hours means your fridge and freezer food has spoiled, your pet fish in fishtanks are on life support, and you can’t run heat or AC leaving the house very chilly during the winter.