So, today (Monday) was my first official day back at work (I'm working half-time from home). I'm really glad to be back on a regular schedule, actually, and relieved that everything is working out with our high-speed Internet connection so far! I'm still pinching myself that it's even possible for me to continue my job from halfway around the globe!
We signed up for our Internet service through our apartment building, which is standard practice here in Thailand: each building will have an agreement with a particular cable, Internet, etc. provider, and you can simply arrange things at the front desk. Our building fortunately works with one of the better service providers, TRUE Corp.; I've heard that other companies can leave much to be desired in terms of their service and the speed of their connection. Getting started was simple: we picked up our modem once it arrived at the front desk, followed the easy English instructions, and we were set to go! Our connection is ADSL (through the phone line), and is limited to about 1 MBPS, mostly because there is a connection bottleneck for international traffic going into/out of the Kingdom.
Last week I was apprehensive about the Internet thing panning out, because we were having issues with our Linksys wireless router (brought from home). Turns out that we think the router was damaged in transit, because it kept dropping the connection. After calling the Internet provider's help line (which provides excellent English support!) I ended up going down to Power Buy, the Thai equivalent of Best Buy, and purchasing a wireless router specifically for ADSL. It's worked like a charm, and I am able to make the VPN connections I need to be able to telecommute. Uploading/downloading is still slow, but we can deal with that. We've even been able to get our Nintendo Wii online again, and have downloaded some Virtual Console games to add to our library of one Wii game...so we've been reliving the past and playing Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Brothers over the past few days!
2 comments:
So, you consider yourselves geeks, yet before blogging about the gaming scene, or the anime theatre, or the like, you blog about getting back to work. At least this involved geeky router problems.
Anyway, glad to hear that everything's set up and you all have managed to get settled in.
Bah. As a fellow wage slave, you know the feeling! Like you said, at least router problems are somewhat geeky.
We did see the Thai puppet theatre last weekend (I'll post it soon). Does that count?
Seriously, getting back to work has been one of the things that had been worrying me, because it serves as an island of normalcy in the midst of this strange, exotic experience!
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