Apr 28, 2023

Whether or not I am a "computer person," I have an insatiable desire to use my smart phone, and more importantly, my Facebook, Instagram and other social media apps in my smart phone. Not to mention Youtube, Netflix, Prime, Disney and all the other T.V. and Movie Streaming apps on my televisions and phone. 

 

Every time I open my Dish Network and Direct TV bills, I stagger backwards and lean against the wall, gasping, wondering, "How do I stream T.V. through an Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV, or Roku and cut this cord and this bill out of my life?? How hard can it actually be? Other people are all doing it and like it, ugh..."

 

So I start to do my research, and I see not just millions, but HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of people are cord cutting and saving half or more on their monthly TV bills. So I think to myself "I wish I were a computer person."

 

One day, as I am scrolling through my daily consumption of news and media, I read an article talking about how it is actually really simple to start streaming and get rid of my old cable bill. I am interested, and read that the only real requirement is having an internet that gets a minimum of 5mb of download consistently. Well, that does it. I am screwed in that department. You see, I live in a smaller community and I don't have many options for rural internet here. While I love seeing my beautiful view every morning, love watching the tractors and farm equipment roll by, I really can't stand my rural internet options. There is the local wired provider frontier but I pay $90/month and it only gives me 1mb of speed. And only half the time. And don't bother if it is 7pm and everyone else in my small rural town is trying to use their internet at the same time. When I call them they always tell me I need to move to the next tier of service, and every time I do, I pay more and get the same measly 1mbps. 

 

I have looked and there is another provider that basically uses small satellite looking dishes that point to the top of a nearby mountain or water tower, but I have been at my friend's house that uses it and the experience is awful. His internet goes up and down like a roller coaster at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Sometimes he does get 4-5mb on a speedtest but that is rare and who cares if it goes off every 2 minutes and then comes back up 2 minutes later. He can't stream anything because the movies keep buffering over and over. 

 

Another friend of mine has an actual satellite company called Via Sat or Hughes Net or something, but they can't stream anything ever on that connection. Basically, it is only good for emails. It is probably the worst of all three options for rural internet. And it costs him like $150/mo or something.

 

The other day, I noticed my other friend's son was playing a video game called Call of Duty with other people online. I suspiciously watched out of the corner of my eye to see what kind of lag or buffering issues he might have. After watching for nearly an hour, I was too curious to not ask. So I blurted out like a child who really wants to know where to get the same candy as he had, "WHAT INTERNET ARE YOU USING?!" He looked up like a typical 13 year old boy like "are you talking to ME??" When he realized I WAS talking to him, he nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders and said, we use ispMint Rural Internet. I said "I have never heard of them, do they bring wired connections to your house?" He said, "no, its a 5g rural internet wireless cellular connection. I just had to plug in this hotspot and internet came up 3 minutes later." 

 

I said, "does it buffer? Does it have good speeds? Can you stream movies on it?" 

 

His Dad Jim chimed in as he was walking back into the house from the garage, "it is bad ass Daniel. You should totally try it. I'll let you take it over to your house and you can see how well it works there." 

 

Jim's son, staring at the screen, says, "sure, but only after my raid!" (Whatever that means) 

 

I told him I am not a computer person. How would I be able to understand how to use it?

 

Jim looked at me and said, "do you have a login and password to facebook? Have you ever changed your wifi user name and password?" 

 

I answered, "yes."

 

He responded, "then you already are a computer person. At least enough of a computer person to be able to log into this little modem/router and put the tower password in. And plus, it already comes from the rual internet company pre-configured, so you might only have to actually do something if something goes wrong down the road. But I have had it for three months and haven't had to login once."

 

After another hour in the garage, I was about to leave and Jim handed me the little modem/router. "Just plug it in and wait three minutes. Then connect to the wifi! The password is listed on the bottom."

 

Driving home I thought, "I would do anything." Even learn how to login to a modem if that is what it takes to be a "computer person." I mean, how hard could it be? Its just a user name and a password. And worse case scenario, I can always call the company to get some help if I forget how to login. Or even better, I can just google it on my cellphone. (Which ironically works better than any of the other rural internet options available in my small town.) And VERY WORSE CASE, I can ask the company to ship me a new device if I can't figure it out. Having high-speed rural internet that I can stream all of my favorite T.V. shows on is worth it.

 

When I got home, I brought my handful of items in from the car and went to the bathroom. Then I got sidetracked and started pulling out dinner from the freezer before I remembered I had a possible golden egg sitting unplugged on my counter. I walked up to the little hand sized modem/router and grabbed the plug. Turning around, I decided to plug into the nearest outlet right next to my InstaPot.

 

I plugged it into the outlet, thinking this can't be this easy. As it started to boot up, I grabbed my cellphone and went into my settings and found my wifi setting. I was now ready. About 2 minutes later, all of the lights on the device were lit up so I checked my phone and sure enough, there was a new wifi found at my house. I flipped the device over to look for the password and found it just like he had said. I clicked on the wifi, and when it asked me for the password, I fumbled through and got the password typed in.

 

I clicked go and waited. 

 

About five seconds later my phone started making bell sounds which normally only happens when I am on wifi and emails are coming in. IT LOOKS LIKE IT IS WORKING! I thought. Ha! I can't believe I somehow have figured out how to get rural internet. Speaking of which, I am still not convinced. The real test is going to be when I try to stream netflix and disney on this. 

 

I run over to my T.V. remote and proceed to go to the settings tab on my "smart" T.V. I choose the one that says Internet and immediately see the option for wifi. I click it. It asks me to enter the wifi password. Wait, where was that? Oh, yeah, on the bottom of the device back on the kitchen counter. I run back over to it and unplug it and run back over to the T.V. only to find that I can no longer see the wifi pop up on the screen anymore. I knew this would be harder than I thought, lol. Then I realize I am just being silly and negative because I unplugged it! Of course it won't work when its not plugged in.

 

So I plug it back in and this time I take a picture of it on my cellphone so I can easily reference the password when I need it. It takes about 2 minutes for it to power up and then I don't see it pop up in my wifi setting again? So, I back out of the setting and then click back in. Maybe that should hopefully refresh it. It does, so I choose the wifi name and it prompts me for a password again. I look at the pic on the phone while I click on the letters and numbers on screen. I click enter! PLEASE WORK!

 

My T.V. connects and I can see options that I have never seen before pop up!! I have rural internet now, I need to see how good it actually works. So I choose my favorite movie and it asks me to enter my credit card?? Oh, wait, I guess you have to pay for rentals. That isn't something new. So I dig into my wallet and grab my debit card and enter the numbers into the on screen prompt. I get all of the numbers put in and press enter. IT GOES THROUGH! I mean, what was I thinking? That it WOULDN'T go through?? Ha. 

 

I click go and it starts playing Die Hard. I can't believe its working. I can't believe I somehow managed to get this far, but then when I am honest with myself, I really didn't do that much to get here. I know how to plug in my drill so I can plug in a modem/router. I know how to enter a user name and password too. What in the hell was I so afraid of before?? Why have I given myself so many limiting beliefs when it comes to technology? How much farther could I have gotten in life if I were to have just tried to plug something in and google it? 

 

Anyways, the real test is going to be if it plays this movie all the way through without giving me the spinning wheel of death because its buffering. We will see I say.

 

Exactly 2hrs and 12 minutes later the credits roll up and I forgot I was even testing internet. NOT A SINGLE STOP THE WHOLE TIME. It played all of the way through with zero issues.

 

This was too easy. WAAY too easy. So I proceed to the next step and I walk to the computer and click the wifi symbol at the bottom right hand side of the screen. Up pops the same wifi name as I saw on my T.V. earlier and I click on that. It asks me for the password and as I start to run over to the device to look at the bottom again, I remember I took that picture of it on my phone and I pull it out, enter the password on my computer and bam, I am rockin and rollin on my computer now too! 

 

I am starting to wonder why I was thinking it was so hard to find good high-speed rural internet before. 

 

So I open up my Google Chrome browser (I had to look up what it is called just now lol.) And I proceed to this company's website at ispMint.com 

 

Up pops their website. Pretty simple really. I click order now. It gives me three options and I pick the smallest one seeing as how Jim told me that is the one they use and they watch T.V. and movies all month on it. I guess 300gb is a lot of data for us rural internet users. Then it gives me three device speeds to choose from and I pick the middle one so I am not bummed out later that I didn't opt for more. I then enter my credit card info and click submit.

 

That was IT??? Why did I think I needed to be a computer person to get good rural internet that I could use to stream movies on? I was now starting to think I need to invest into some self help books to correct my limiting belief thinking patterns. (Jordan Belford's Way of the Wolf is a good one) What is really cool is I noticed that the service even comes with a 100% money back guarantee so I can ship it back for a full refund if I find some other miraculous high speed rural internet between now and then. (Fat chance)

 

When I saw my friend Jim the next day and handed his device back to him, I was smiling ear to ear. He didn't even have to ask how it went. I told him I already went online and ordered it and he made a joke, something about I became a computer person real fast when I needed to be! 

 

I would encourage anyone reading this in a rural area to seriously consider going to ispMint.com and placing an order. What is the worst that could happen? It doesn't work, and you send it back and get your money back?? After I finally got my new modem/router in the mail, I used it for a week and then cancelled my old frontier dsl and haven't looked back. This totally worked for me.

 

ispMint has it. 100% money back guaranteed. No contract.

Call 844-533-5111 or go to ispMint.com now.