I finally have a fast Internet connection

I remember when having a 10 Mbps Internet connection felt like something of a modern miracle. When we moved into our current house, nine years ago, I was excited that the neighborhood was wired with fiber. Until I learned that they were using RF-over-glass, which is to say the fiber got to your house, and a converter put the signal on good old fashioned RG6 coaxial cable, for a cable modem. Over the years, they kept upping the download speeds, and we were at 500 Mbps, but uploads were still a dismal 20 Mbps. Most people probably don't need more, but because I backup everything outside the home, things like video files have always been miserable to upload.

Then over the last month or two, that fiber-but-cable connection kept dropping out, almost every evening. I don't know the reason, but others in the neighborhood experienced similar. I called Spectrum once, and they gave me the run-around because their cable modem (which is locked down so you can't see what it's really doing) didn't report any outages. But I tried three different routers and a direct laptop connection, and it was definitely not my equipment. I kept meaning to call to complain more, but then a dude from Spectrum was going door-to-door, asking if folks wanted actual fiber connections. So duh, of course.

My concern was that they would show up and find some way to do it wrong. All of the houses in the neighborhood have two ethernet cables from the laundry or closet to the outside, one apparently for analog phone, for which there aren't any lines buried. Anyway, the ideal set up is that you have power-over-ethernet (PoE) sent from inside to a network interface outside, and then on the inside you connect your router. A neighbor who finally got fiber said they drilled a hole into his garage to set this up for some reason, which seemed like the wrong thing to do. I was concerned that this wasn't going to work.

So when the dude got here, that's what he wanted to do. The problem is that their network interfaces don't do PoE, they need to be plugged in to regular AC power. I explained to him that there was no power in the garage there, but that's also where my house backup battery is. Pretty sure the main electric lines are in the wall around there, too. I do have an outdoor plug there, so extension cord it was. He initially insisted that the interface had to be inside because it's not rated for outdoor, but I told him the old RFoG adapter had been in there for nine years in the weatherproof box, with four hurricanes. Fortunately, he went along with it.

A few months ago, they started using these "invincible" routers, which have an 8-hour battery backup and a 5G cellular connection. I don't technically need a router at all, since I have my mesh units, but the cellular is intriguing. As is the case with their other gear, it's locked down and you can only change a few settings via their app or web site. So now I have this router spewing wifi into my house next to my own router, because I can't turn off their wifi. Whatever.

The speed tests now run between 940 and 1050 Mbps in both directions.

I used the opportunity to rewire some stuff, and get my "network rack" out of my office. I previously had the cable modem in there, along with a switch, a UPS, my NAS and a Hue hub (for lights). I emptied it out, and mounted it high on the wall in my laundry room. It feels secure, screwed into the studs, but it makes me a little nervous. In any case, now I just have the single ethernet cable in my office and the second mesh node. The primary mesh node, the NAS and two Hue hubs, along with the switch and the Spectrum router, are all up there, out of the way.