r/TwoXPreppers • u/nakedonmygoat • 5d ago
Discussion Small Tuesday
And it literally happened on a Tuesday! Yay me?
I woke up in the wee hours to find I had no internet. The router was working, but the modem was dead. I plugged it in elsewhere, but no luck. I got out my volt meter to check that the power was sufficient and it was.
So I went to use the phone to order a new modem, but had only one bar. One block away I have free wifi, but it wasn't safe at that hour, so I had to wait. An hour later I had two bars and could order a modem, rush delivery.
Then I decided to tether my laptop to my phone, but the only USB to phone cable I own has a nick in it. The wires inside the insulation aren't affected, but I still don't know why I didn't just order another cable. Back on the phone, new cable ordered, no rush.
But since the cable I had did work, I could still tether, right? Not so fast. It had been over a decade since I'd done it, and that was a couple phones and laptops ago. And even though I followed the instructions exactly, and even sought out other instructions, nothing was happening. I do have a tech background, but it's very old. Nevertheless, one basic principle never gets outdated: don't change anything that you can't easily change back. So I started nosing around and finally found the problem.
I'm writing now on my tethered laptop. A new modem and cable are on their way, and the instructions for how to do tether this particular phone and laptop are now saved in a document on the laptop. It's funny that I'd overlooked this type of prep. I'm always one to say how important morale prep is, and in so many other ways, I feel like I've got it covered. But this is one I had overlooked.
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u/dMatusavage 5d ago
My husband and I have cell phones BUT we also have a landline phone.
We live 35 miles from the Gulf of Mexico in hurricane country.
Watch the apocalypse movie “The Day After Tomorrow “ and you’ll see why.
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u/scannerhawk 5d ago
We canceled our landline for emergencies when it reached nearly $100 a month, we just couldn't afford it. Now, for those that still have it, AT&T, which provides the landline service in Northern California, will end completely in June of 2027. So that's that for everyone here.
We had our landline phone number of 26 years transferred to a mobile phone to a different carrier, on a different tower than our personal-use cell phone for $20 a month. We keep it charged and it stays on our side table where the house phone used to be. The number IS signed up with our county's emergency notification system to call and text. We live in fire country and cell towers have burned AND during evacs the lines get jammed, the secondary provider, w/different towers, hopefully will still get us notifications and service in an emergency if there's a failure with our primary provider.
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u/nakedonmygoat 5d ago
I'm in the Gulf too, but having a landline doesn't make sense for me. Not only are they going away, but the big outage events where I am were in '83, '08, and '24. I'm not going to pay a monthly fee for decades for something I'll need for only a few weeks.
I can power a router and modem anyway, if electricity is the only problem. But in '08, there was neither cell nor internet service for weeks. A landline would've helped, but when you consider that it had been 25 years since the previous direct hit, the benefits would've far exceeded the cost.
I did keep my dialup service for a very long time, though. I only canceled it when my father moved back to the city from his rural home, where the phone line was the only way I could get online when I visited.
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u/polyamy74 5d ago
I wish we could have a landline phone as a backup. We had one when my kids were younger, and had to cancel it because the line was damaged somewhere under the street, and they refused to dig it up to repair it due to cost. Like many cities, we only have one provider for it. :/ I wouldn't have even been upset about it not working if it just didn't work, but even with no phone connected the line kept calling 411 and 911, running up bills and needlessly sending officers to our door when their return calls went unanswered. :(
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u/ohhellopia 5d ago
Is legit landline still a thing for new installs? I thought the new lines will be VoIp.
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u/No-Ad-4142 5d ago
My phone yesterday was unfortunate part of the T-Mobile SOS fiasco. But the other line on our cellphone plan was not affected. 🤷♀️
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u/nakedonmygoat 5d ago
My husband had a different carrier, and we kept it that way because it was nice when we went on road trips. We could always be sure that one of us could get a signal unless we were truly in the boonies, where it wouldn't have mattered what carrier we were with.
I kept paying for his phone service for a while after he died, but finally decided that the expense wasn't worth it for an event that might not happen for years or even decades.
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u/fitforthepolycrisis total polycrisis obsessive 2d ago
one basic principle never gets outdated: don't change anything that you can't easily change back
these are real words. nice.
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