I’m in a small town in central Missouri. I’ve been accessing the Internet via Internet Sharing with my cell phone and that worked well for a while. Then the data transfer rate gradually went to zero. Rebooting the phone and computer didn’t help. I started “borrowing” wireless bandwidth from someone with a SSID of “Linksys” (it is my understanding they are the largest free Internet provider in the country). That went away about two hours ago and I’m back on the cell phone which gives me a few bits every once in a while before drying up.

It’s like I am pumping water from a well and I pulled the water table down below all the intake pipes in the town. I’m mostly sucking air now with just an occasional few spurts of water.

Another indication of the low bit table is that my new phone with the weak cell signal (known issue, we are working on it) runs its battery dead, even while plugged into USB power, trying to sync my email from work.

Until I leave town blogging and email responses will be marginal at best.