Free market and the Internet

Like lots of people, I'm looking for faster internet or even internet.  One thing I can say for certain that it is not a free market - few sellers and very little useful information.

At our cabin, we use dialup on our phone that costs us about $37/month.  Periodically I dig around Frontier's web site to find information.  The latest pricing is $50/month additional for "up to 6Mbps".  If I had a internet-dependent business this might make sense.  But not for 4 to 8 evenings a month.

In Duluth, our phone bill is $58/month, but I can't break it down at the moment.  My wife doesn't save the detail pages of our bill.  Given that we used to pay $23/month for land line, then we are paying about $35/month for "up to 7Mbps".  I just did a CenturyLink speed test that showed 6Mpbs at 12:50 on a Sunday.  Other speed tests in evenings have shown 4Mpbs.  Trying to determine what higher speeds would cost is a big hassle.  See http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=787754 for some users experiences with CenturyLink.

When I bought my iPhone, I switched from Verizon to Virgin Mobile because the pricing was more advantageous to me, only $30/month including data.  When we visited our daughter at her lake house near Grand Rapids MN, I thought I would be able to use my iPhone to access the web.  I was, sort of.  I would get a one-bar 3G signal, then without moving I would get a roaming signal, then no service, then searching, then back to one-bar 3G, even standing by an upstairs window.  Our daughter's house is 10 miles from Grand Rapids and less than 2 miles from a major highway.  Granted that there are many trees, but can waving leafless trees cause that much variation?  The second surprise was that we thought with the iPhone and a low-power FM-to-car-radio cable that we would be able to listen to Minnesota Public Radio all the way back to Duluth without changing the dial.  No such luck!  On the major highway we were on, the cell signal kept coming in and out.  Oh, well, at least the Virgin Mobile/Sprint coverage map doesn't claim that that area is covered.

I knew that AT&T had put up a couple of towers in the Brimson area where we have our cabin, but I've heard many complaints that many AT&T's customer are not satisfied.  I checked AT&T's coverage map and did discover coverage areas in Brimson; they are a whole bunch of small islands that make no sense.  Besides telling me that our cabin address is could not be matched (other web sites can find it), it shows a coverage area that starts just west of where our cabin is and ends less than a mile farther west.  That's too iffy to make a decision with.

The lesson is that you have to make a long checklist of all the features you want in a product and then spend hours and hours to find out what portion of those features are available to you at a price you want to pay.  Nobody else is going to help you.  And of course, after you buy the product, you'll find a new feature you want but your choice doesn't provide – like listening to public radio without switching stations.

I still don't believe the polls

… and I don't really have any well-based predictions of my own.

Consider that our phone rings several times a day.  We don't answer and very few leave a message on the answering machine.  Those who do leave a message have some meaningful connection to us.  Given the approaching election, these "empty" calls are

1) Robo-calls for a candidate or a party
2) Person calls for a candidate or a party
3) Poll calls

Also consider that many people have cell phones but no land line.  Although some pollsters say they are calling both land lines and cell phones, many cell phone numbers are not in any directory.  My cell phone has few calls and the two recent unknown calls may have been misdials or random spamming.  Besides, I generally have it off.

Which way will those who are not reached by a poll lean?  I can't really say.  Will too many younger voters stay away because they didn't think Obama didn't do enough?  Are those who don't answer more likely to lean toward Obama?  As I write this yet another call came in that stopped after three rings.

How likely are those who respond to actually vote?  One of the questions is if the respondent is a likely voter.  Many people say they are likely voters because they are embarrassed to admit that they don't plan on voting.

I think the election will be determined by the balance of unhappy people, which group will stay away in larger numbers - Tea Party types who don't think Romney is "conservative" enough or "liberals" who don't think Obama did enough.  My inclination is that the latter will be the larger group.

I hope you, dear reader, will not be a stay-away on election day.  Please remind your friends to vote.