Picture this. An old, old house with two storeys and a basement. Bright orange and grey Ethernet cables running across the floor boards, over door frames, up and down the outline of the staircases, with small bits of masking tape every foot or so securing the cables to the mouldings. That, my friends, was my IT/broadband internet setup back in my NY dwelling. I DIY-ed it, it was ghetto as heck and I lived with that setup for years too! I’m so not proud to admit that. I swore the day internet cables are no longer in sight where I’d be living next, that would be when interior design zen prevails.
Onwards with me jumping onto the fiber optic internet bandwagon (or in this case, a Boxster, since I have a need for speed), the field engineers from SingTel – my internet service provider of choice, recommended a contractor in order to install the hardware and cabling in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Two words: concealed wires. Two more words: gotta drill-my-walls-and-ceilings-to-hell-and-back. Ouch.
It was quite a sacrifice. The construction portion of this cables vanishing act took almost an entire day. Sweaty strange men were in my apartment climbing on ladders and wielding loud drills. Too intense for my ears and me. Sawdust flying everywhere. It had to be done. In between silent chantings of OM SHAKALAKA LAKALAKA SHANTI SHANTI SHANTI, I reminded myself that when all is patched up and orderly again, I won’t see as much as a baby worm wire butt sticking out into the corridors or floors that span across the living room and workstation – the two primary spaces where I need high-speed internet connectivity. Don’t even get me started on secondary spaces where wifi deadspots may turn up at (geez, is this an apartment or a cave!?). The SingTel guys assured me they will be covered within wifi zone, in lieu of wired connectivity.
Concealed wires good. Pencil wrapped in burrito bad. Oh well, can’t be worse than having 75 feet of unruly Ethernet cables running all over like the way I had it before in my NY home. Yeah, just hide all those wires already. Put them away to where no one can see, especially me.
Shakalaka Shanti Om Shanti Shanti. Riding on blazing fast internet soon. *wootz*
I look at the screen and click on the button in anticipation. I’m testing out the broadband speed now that all has been hooked up and configured beautifully. No ugly cables or wires sticking out anywhere. Hardware, IP addresses for devices, other techymumbojumboblaba – all that have been set in place. As far as I can see, there are three hardware units: the actual OpenNet point where the fiber optic cable resides, an ONT device that converts the fiber optic light into data, and a dual-band modem. I am happy that replacing my previous setup of tangled wires (which, believe you me, I tried my best to conceal, disguise, hide, camouflage, etc. was simply futile), everything looks much neater and organized now. Even after witnessing the drilling and raw holes on my walls and ceilings, that’s all been patched up seamlessly and I can finally breathe a sigh of relief at a job well done.
The only thing left to do is test for speed.
The gauge needle wiggles rabidly and traces the arc that outlines the path between my apartment’s IP address and the ping destination. The verdict is out: Download speed 336.59 mbps. Upload speed 339.38 mbps. I think my internet connection is flying compared to what I had before. And on wifi at different spots in my apartment – including the storeroom?
Fiber optic broadband internet and I are getting along just fine. The happily ever after. Kinda.
