We have a DSL line from our local telco for internet access. We pay $45 a month for 10 megabits download speed (never get more than 8) and less than 1 megabit upload speed. Not great but all that’s available where we live.

Been having problems for the last couple of weeks with technicians coming up to check lines, etc. Keep thinking they have it fixed but the problem persists so we’ve been using the hotspot feature on our iPhones. Yesterday I stopped by the local AT&T store to talk about our data plan to avoid getting surprised by a huge bill.

We’re currently paying $130 a months for 15gb that Barb and I share. Historically, we use very little of this but if we start making heavy use of the hotspot feature that could change. Without getting any further into the weeds here, I upgraded to an “unlimited” data plan for $150 a month. But the plan lets us stop paying for HBO and we get some other discounts so the faster service winds up costing me less than I was paying.

I’d never checked to see what kind of speeds I get from our AT&T wireless so I figured this was a good time to take a look. We’re getting 18 mbs down and 5.6 mbs up. More than twice as fast as the DSL line!

We don’t stream a lot of movies but do have Netflix, Amazon Prime and Apple TV. I’ll keep the DSL service for a few months while we monitor our wireless data use, but I’m thinking I can adios the DSL.

This is might be more noteworthy to me because I remember the dial-up modem days. 2400, 14,400, 56K. Dark days? An exciting time? Could never have imagined I’d be able to connect to the internet with a mobile phone. Could never have imagined a mobile phone.