It became obvious after my son and his family had to move across the country for a new job. What made me most sad was that I’d no longer be able to see my grandkids a few times a week. Having lived just a few minutes away from them, I’d pick them up from the bus stop then spend time with them until their mom came home.

Knowing how upset I was, my son bought me a laptop so we could video chat on as often as I wanted so I could see everyone. While this wasn’t the same as seeing them in person, it was the best we could do given the situation. However, the day they moved, we tried to have a video chat and that’s when I knew something was wrong.

My son tried to start a video chat with me on my new laptop (which was in the living room) and when I hit the answer button, I could hear my family but I couldn’t see them. I kept getting an error on the screen stating “video will not work due to bad internet connection”. My son suggested bringing the laptop to another room in my house (my bedroom), but I kept getting the same error.

And it wasn’t just in my living or bedroom, every room in my house had the same issue.

This situation with the internet had to change. Ever since my husband had passed away, I vowed to spend as much time with my family as possible. And since they had to move far away, this was all we had left.

As anyone would, I did the only thing I knew to do, I called up my internet provider. I explained the situation to them and they said all they could do was send someone out. But when they said it wouldn’t be for about 3 weeks, I was furious. However, there was nothing I could do.

Finally, the day came that help was supposed to arrive. The technician who came ( I won’t name him because of what he admitted later on in the day) was super friendly. I explained how I needed my internet fixed so I can video chat with my family.

As the man was doing his tests and checking everything out, we got to talking. We both realized our grandkids knew each other ( they went to the same daycare ). That’s when he admitted something disturbing…

“You ever hear of routers being throttled? Most people haven’t but basically, they do it to everyone. At first, your internet is a fast as you’d expect but then it slows down. They make a change to your router, which slows down the speed of its output.”

I didn’t really understand what he meant but then he explained more…

“It’s how they get you to keep upgrading. You get used to having fast internet, then they slow it down. This becomes very frustrating. Then most people do the only thing they know, they upgrade their package. Then the cycle starts all over again. You’re happy at first, then the internet seems to slow down”

When I told him I think I will just switch internet providers, he said there is no point, they all do it. He said he’s worked for all the big companies in the area and they are all the same.

He could see the look of frustration on my face and told me to hold on while he ran to his truck. When he walked back in the door, he had a huge grin on his face while holding a tiny device.