After about two weeks of waiting, the day finally came. A pair of white vans appeared outside my home and instead of the FBI or something, it was the internet fairy! Do fairies deliver internet? I feel like maybe it would be goblins. Okay, the internet goblins. It is decided.
Installation, somewhat alarmingly, involved drilling a hole in the side of the house. But the electronics box that interpets the fiber optic signal stays with the house even if I were to move out, so it's a long term thing, which makes me feel less squeamish about it.
That guy sure is a lot more comfortable leaning a ladder on a power line than I would be. I guess he's done it enough by now that it doesn't spook him. Maybe don't try this at home, kids? Or do, I'm not the boss of you and death is a surprisingly affordable alternative to life these days. From a fiscal standpoint at least, there's a lot to recommend it.
Here it is all hooked up and working. After a bit of hair pulling I got everything set the way I wanted to in the router GUI. One tiny snag, though...Here's what I get when I plug my laptop into the modem via ethernet cable:
Meanwhile, here's what I get over wifi:
Kind of a big fucking difference, and a severe problem for me because this house isn't wired for ethernet. It's looking like I won't be able to get 99% of the speed I'm paying for without hooking my computer up to the modem directly, and it's two rooms away.
I think there's some kind of solution to this. Like a wireless box I can plug one ethernet cable into, and then a matching second box I plug another ethernet cable into which creates a high speed bridge between them. I am just unsure specifically what I need to buy.
The answer might eventually just be to downgrade my service to 45Mbps which will still be overkill compared to what I am actually able to use over wifi. But that's a last resort. Before I do that, I'm going to investigate solutions, hopefully ones which don't involve stringing dozens of feet of obtrusive ethernet cable all over the house.
EDIT: Problem #2 has arisen: The wifi connects and disconnects over and over. No idea what causes this but hopefully wiring my PC directly to the router will fix it, which is what I have decided to resort to.
Stay Cozy!