Well, 29 June brought more than the iPhone, more than Sicko and more than the GPLv3. I have now joined the 20th century as I have some sort of broadband at the farm.

When we moved out here, the only two services we got were telephone and power. No cable, gas, water, garbage pickup, paved streets, etc. The lack of broadband was the only thing that bothered me. Now, almost 8 years later, it arrives.

As much as I tend to dislike Embarq, they did manage to get it turned on on time. All I really had to do was hack the little “modem” they sent me out of “router” mode and into “bridge” mode so it could talk with my wireless router directly.

However, I still think the discrepancy in the name of the service package I bought and the specs they advertise is funny:

I immediately set about upgrading three Macs and a Windows VM. I also ran nmap against the router to make sure nothing bad was open to the world.

It’s not as speedy as I would like.

and I’m wondering if the equipment has me configured for the cheaper, 1.5Mbps plan. I will call them on Monday to make sure, but after living on dial-up for so long I’ll take what I can get.

Still weird not to see the phone light on while surfing.