Yes, Frank, I'm Still Here - Cold and Personal Hotspots

 Frank commented on the previous post that it's been ten days since my last post.  I hadn't realized it was so long.  

It's been cold, generally between +5˚F and -7˚F (-15˚C and -21˚C) and so it takes a little more energy and mental fortitude to go outside.  But I walked over to the University library (about a mile each way) to drop off some books that were due.  I was able to do some of that inside buildings.  About half outside.  I did enjoy seeing this book displayed in the new books section:   

I was clearly enjoying my 'right to be cold.'

Then there were other details to catch up on.  Paying bills and making year end contributions to organizations that are fighting to save our democracy, feed the hungry, etc.  

Our trip to Turkey got me into the world of eSims.  These are electronic Sim cards so you are getting data service in the country you are in, not using up expensive roaming from your home phone provider - in our case ATT.  Instead of physically replacing the sim card in your phone, you canto do it electronically via the internet and it automatically turns on when you land in the host country.  In learning about eSims I realized that there are eSims for the US, and in many cases they were significantly cheaper than local internet access and even phone service.  We settled on a company called Saily which worked fine. 

I have been doing battle with Alaska Communication Service (ACS), formerly Anchorage Telephone Utility (ATU) for a while.  Our internet speed is miserable (1 MBPS) and despite three years of promises of fiber, nothing has changed.  So, before our trip, I cut off our granherdfathered in landline/internet package and vowed to use eSim or find something better when we got back.  

It turned out I could use our ATT unlimited data and a personal hotspot with my laptop.  Bingo.

Well, not quite so fast.  I got a text from ATT that my 10GB per month limit for personal hotspot was

75% used up by the tenth day of our billing cycle.  I checked our bill - J does that bill - and it says unlimited data.  There's nothing on there about personal hotspots.  I went to ATT and talked to the guy I'd talked to before our trip to Turkey.  I liked him then and I still do.  He said that yes there was a 10GB limit to personal hotspot.  It wasn't on the bill, but it was in the contract which he brought up on his tablet.  We have an over 55 package, which he told me was only available for three months and adding 20GB (for a total of 30GB per month of hotspot) would be an extra $34 and I'd have to buy a different plan, though my wife could stay in the old plan.  No, I couldn't simply buy 20GB and patch it on the the plan, you have to buy a whole plan that has more GB of personal hotspot use. And because the over 55 plan was no longer available, I couldn't go back to it if I didn't like the new one.  

We discussed the eSim options. He told me he uses personal hotspot for his internet, and I left saying I'd check what was available before committing to the new plan.

Turns out ATT's $34 for 20GB is not a bad price.  But I was able to get 20GB through Saily for $23 for a month.  But that was a special, normally it's $30, which is not much less that ATT's $34.  But when I was looking for eSims for our trip, I saw that prices change rapidly and constantly.

You do have to go into settings and then the cellular section of your phone and add the eSim which I did.  It's not without obstacles, but it's not that hard.  And Saily has a good chat option that worked well when I needed it.  

After a day and a half I was down to 18.2 GB.  What was happening?  Turns out I was using the Saily instead of my ATT for my data on my phone.  So I've remedied that (back to the cellular section of settings and shutting off Saily when I didn't need it) and we'll see how long the original 20GB last.  I can still use the ATT for personal hotspot, but at a drastically slower speed - worse even than our ACS internet speed.  But knowing that I can plan.  For instance, opening this blogger page and writing here was reasonable.  But uploading pictures wasn't working, so I turned on Saily to do that, then turned it off.  (I know some of you are rolling your eyes and saying it's not worth all that trouble.  But I have a 1997 car with a tape deck, no heated seats, and no video for backing up and no hookup to charge my phone.  People are addicted to luxuries that didn't even exist 30 years ago and they are paying for them as well.)

It would be easier to just go with the old ACS, but even though we were grandfathered in to the landline/internet package, they kept raising the price.  The email addresses that had been free were now $5 a piece.  The free 100 minutes of interstate calls now was $5 a month too.  We never used that but they said it was part of the package and couldn't be waived.  Then there's the $25 late fee if you don't pay the bill by the exact due date.  No grace period any more.  While I was traveling I couldn't pay the bill, because when I went on line to pay, instead of their website, I got a page saying the country I was in (Tükiye) was blocked.  

And instead of sending me an email saying my bill is due in a few days, like VISA does and Chugach Electric does, they send that email the day after it was due.  The other utilities have grace periods and their late fees are either a percentage of the bill or much less than ACS's $25.  This is clearly deliberate.  If a thousand customers pay a $25 late fee, that's $25,000 a month, $300,000 a year.  I've asked to get the name of the CEO so I could write a letter.  None of their officers are on their website.   Wikipedia lists Matthew McConnell as the president and CEO and the parent company as ATN International. [They list the officers now, and the CEO is not Matthew McConnell]  They are owned by a Massachusetts  company - ATN International -  and the most I could get out them was that some of the officers live in Anchorage.  

So now I'm down to two emails with ACS.  I've set up substitute emails.  One is for this website.  The new one is listed in the right hand column.  And I got a $25 late fee charge for a $10 bill for the two emails!  It's called predatory and this sort of ruthless business is supported by the Trump administration which has taken off the limits to these kinds of charges that were introduced by Biden administration.  

I just have to go through the other alaska.net email so I can be sure I replace that address with the new one for organizations that need to contact me.  And I need to hear from.

And so, even if the personal hotspot adds an extra step or two to get my laptop connected to the internet, I think it's worth it (certainly it's much cheaper).  But also because the tech world is constantly changing our options and researching eSims before our trip enlightened me to this new option.  I feel like I'm only 10 or 20 years behind the times.

OK.  I guess I'll stop here.  I was going to skim over a number of other things I've been doing, but clearly I'm not good at skimming.  Often my titles get written after the post because I'm not sure what the post is going to cover.  The combination of cold and personal hotspots is a very accidental title, but I love it.  

So Frank, thanks for reminding me I needed to get back on here.  

Topics that got left out:

• Hitler's Art Thief
• Sunday solidarity meeting
• Chanukah party
• David Brown, author
• Gaining daylight after the solstice
• Flowers blooming inside 
• Replacing my lost VISA card
• AIFF2025 left over posts to write