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We just went through over 3 weeks waiting for the technician to repair our Internet. Some junkie had stolen the cable at the node for the copper. That was in the summer. Maybe July.....
So yesterday morning it went out again. This time, I'm thinking it's the 25 pair wire that the technician said had a bunch of "bad pairs" in it and if I understood him correctly, there was no spares remaining. Our neighbors are still online. This time the expected wait until the technician shows up is a mere 2 weeks. If they have to replace the 25 pair cable, according to what I was told last time, the technician doesn't have the equipment or materials to lay new cable so another work order and wait time is involved.
So ... The last time this occurred I had an interesting thing happen and it's happening again.
For some reason, my office computer is running it's programs extremely slow. I have a billing program for my business and open office for word processing. Both ran like molasses in winter yesterday. I was trying to write up an AAR (after action report) for a recent K9 search and I couldn't get the program to open the file. After 3 reboots I gave up. I'll be running my DAW today to finish the guitar tracking for a new song. Last time we had no Internet, the DAW took forever to do certain things. As soon as the Internet was restored, it went back to running like I normally expect it to.
Am I crazy? Wait.... Don't answer that. Let me put it another way..... Is it possible that the Internet connection is somehow responsible for the noticable speed difference in the programs or am I imagining it?
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Does your DAW access the Internet for any reason? If so, it could be a clue, if not, I'm clueless.
I had a problem with my Internet for years. I live near salt water, the telephone cables are old, and that means corrosion. Te telephone cables pass few homes per mile of cable. That makes replacing the cables something Bell South and later ATT doesn't want to do.
As all the available good pairs got used up, the phone/Internet would go out frequently. If they said, "We'll fix it in 3 days" a call to the phone company threatening to report them to the Public Service Commission, which regulates their rates, would get it fixed in a hurry.
Then came cell phones, and the PSC no longer regulated ATT. So the phone went out, and it took 3 days to get it back on. Since I run a business, that was unacceptable so I switched to the Cable TV company (Comcast).
I don't watch TV, and don't have TV service, all I get from them is Internet. It's quite reliable and when it fails it doesn't stay off for long. Why? Thousands of people not watching TV get irate.
The downside is this, if a hurricane comes, the Cable TV will surely be out. I've had copper wire phone service in hurricanes, because it doesn't need additional power, but CATV needs power supplies every few miles and if one goes out, everything downstream goes out.
Sorry about the long explanation.
You may want to switch your phone to the Cable TV company's infrastructure.
♫ Notes ♫
Bob "Notes" Norton  Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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Some coincidences appear to show that big brother is watching. I don't know for sure, but..
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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I haven’t had extended cable internet outages, but if I did and my computer’s performance suffered, the first place I would look is in the Preferences for each program. I would turn off Check for Automatic Updates (or whatever language each program uses to do that). All those programs trying to phone home can’t be good when they can’t do it.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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As step #1 I'd uninstall any programs you don't need or use.
Then I'd ensure that your operating system isn't waiting to install an update. If one is pending, then do the update.
Then, program by program I would ensure that you have the latest updates for them.
If after all this the problem remains, try shutting down your browser. Some web pages are resource hogs and can cause problems.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677BiaB 2026 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
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He can't get the latest updates with no internet.
His cell phone could be a hotspot though, if his computer is wireless.
Best I got.
I have used my phone for my computers internet connection a few times when internet was an issue, but I also use comcast for internet (only) and it's pretty dang reliable. And fast.
Last edited by rharv; 10/08/25 04:01 PM.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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I'm on my hotspot right now to reply.
Everything wants to access the internet and I only have programs that I need on my machines. My machines live a very boring lifestyle.
The cable company wants $12,000 to run their apparently gold plated platinum diamond encrusted wire the 1000 feet to my house. That's not happening. None of the other companies cover the area and starlink is too costly on a monthly basis.
I have my State of NC representative's office involved, After all, congress has appropriated countless millions to bring high speed internet to underserved communities. I think I qualify in that category. They are contacting the BrightSpeed representative to the state legislature and they will see if we can speed up the installation/connection of the fiber or at least get an idea of when to realistically expect it to become available. They advertise 300Mb for $50 on their website.... I'm paying that currently, for 20Mb DSL.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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DSL uses the old copper telephone wiring. They didn’t have to install anything except an inexpensive little filter for line noise. I chaired a three-state committee to bring broadband to our little underserved region. Nothing yet. Good luck.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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See what deals are available for Satellite broadband, probably not a route you want to go down either.
Its frustrating when internet goes down or very slow, my 900 Mbits went down to only a few Mbits a few days ago, I forgot to check my email as they usually ermail us, instead went into resetting router and extender which of course didn't help, and took a while to do
Only then did someone on a forum remind me to check email, and of course the fault was at the providers end.
Any Antiviris running on PC which might be trying to access the net for an update.
Hope you get it sorted.
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Herb, you're not near enough to a mobile phone tower to get cellular?
A friend of mine in rural country switched from ADSL to Cellular and now also gets significantly faster speeds.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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A friend is in the same boat. Power company severed his cable last week and says it will be next week before anyone will go out to fix it. He is in one of those weird pockets of Cupertino where that's his only internet choice.
AT&T owns DirecTV — not fast and weather affects the satellite but, for some residents here in the Silicon Valley, it's their only choice other than 720k dial-up. These folks live walking distance to HP in Santa Clara and the Apple HQ in Cupertino (just a few blocks away from each other). When I worked for them 22 years ago, they had to pay my Comcast bill because there was no DSL. I live two miles away—in the other direction, I'm a couple miles from Google, Microsoft and a whole gaggle of other tech firms.
Speaking of AT&T, they went into my backyard a couple months ago to run optical in my neighborhood—finally, then sent me a letter saying that DSL would be discontinued the end of the month and that I had to convert at no additional cost... So, last weekend, had it done and SpeedTest shows a 4x increase downloading and 20x increase in uploading for the same price. I can live with that.
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I've not a clue as to why our area is different but many net providers here in middle GA accessed the 2024 infrastructure funds to run fiber to rural areas. There are areas on county dirt roads that might only have a home every mile, if that, but they have high speed fiber. We got it this past spring and went from our decades of copper 12-20mps down / 1mps up to a gigabyte up and down -- billed as a gig but actually around 700mps. It's amazing. We can upload a wav about as quick as it takes to tap the send key. The billing is cheaper than the copper was and there were no installation charges - and some of our neighbors' houses are a quarter mile off the road. We're only a hundred yards. I had apparently incorrectly assumed this was a nationwide thing. For our immediate area some of the contracted installers were from Texas. They worked for multiple providers.
Bud
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos
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We have 3 or 4 fiber optic choices here in AR where I live. I have AT& T 1gb for $80 per month. My son in law lives 5 houses down from me and he is a Tech for AT&T which he has 5gb which he gets free of course since he works for them. The only problem we ever had was someone was burning leaves and caught his shed on fire and burned down the power lines which knocked out a whole lot of us for a day.
I have not had DSL for many years now.
BIAB 2026 Ultrapack- Fender Studio Pro 8, Windows 11, Mac Mini M4 with Logic Pro 11, Melodyne Studio, Luna Pro
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I'm looking out my window at a fiber optic line. Problem is, it belongs to another company*. Mine offers 1 gig over cable TV so I'm not complaining, but it goes down often enough to be annoying (especially in the rain). Will they install fiber to the curb? Yes, but the company covers from populous Westchester County of New York (White Plains, north of New York City) up to the rural areas of farmland in the Hudson Valley. I live one mile from the northernmost area they serve. Guess who gets fiber first? Will I still be alive?
*cell towers require fiber optic service
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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We do not have fiber optics and it will be a long time before we do. They are slowly installing fiber optics in Rochester NY and other areas near it. The problem is that us and many in our area have buried lines, thus we will have the most expensive line installation costs. Plus we are very close to the edge of our county line, around 30 miles from the area in Rochester that has fiber optics.
Life is short so make sure you spend as much time as possible on the Internet arguing with strangers.
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We do not have fiber optics and it will be a long time before we do. They are slowly installing fiber optics in Rochester NY and other areas near it. The problem is that us and many in our area have buried lines, thus we will have the most expensive line installation costs. Plus we are very close to the edge of our county line, around 30 miles from the area in Rochester that has fiber optics. We built our house 37 years ago and had copper phone/net until this year. For the past 10 years we’ve been within .6 mile of fiber but as you alluded we opted for underground utilities along our dead end road. Our acreage is part of a 10 home development and the lovely forested winding road would be ruined view wise by overhead lines and poles. But little did we know how long it would keep us from fiber. Apparently the flood of infrastructure money, as mentioned in my previous, response, finally made it profitable for several of the net companies to lay underground fiber. Bud
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos
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Why is this the hottest thread on the forum? And why can't I take my eyes off of it??? Probably because life without an internet connection is the most bone chilling, nightmarish scenario imaginable. Rooting for you, Herb!
I do frequently take "internet-free holidays", and enjoy them a lot. But I control them. Herb's situation is of course different...
DC Ron
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We don't have fiber optics here, and I doubt I'd see it in the next few or more years.
I live off a 30 mile road. To the east is a 2 mile wide lagoon, a barrier island and the ocean. Tto the west is a protected wetland. Most of the lots are 50 acres or so, and other than a half dozen short dead-end spurs there are no cross streets. All this points out to is this: There are very few homes per mile of cable, so the return on the investment is poor.
I live on one of those dead-end spurs. Before zoning, a guy divided his 56 acre lot in two, and on one side of the divide, redivided them and built one cottage per year. Mine was built in 1950 and sits on not quite a half acre.
So if they ever decide to invest in fiber, they would probably start in a more densely populated section of town where they can get more bang for their bucks.
But for me, living near the water in a half acre of greenery is worth the cable TV upload/download not so speedy speeds.
Bob "Notes" Norton Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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What I was told is the fiber is in the ground but hasn't been terminated yet.
As far as satellite or star link.... Many years ago I used to install satellite Internet. It wasn't very good. Customers complained about it a lot. Star link is 3x the cost of land based Internet plus the equipment.
The last time we had the outage in July I went looking for a cellular option. Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, even my own cell phone company..... None of them had a tower close enough based on my address location to provide their service over the data network. Interestingly enough, my cell phone carrier could provide me with the upgraded service package that lets me turn my phone into a hotspot. The downside is that it only works with devices that are directly wireless networkable. Laptops and such.... My DAW is network compatible. My work/business computer is not.
The technician is scheduled one week from today.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Why is your work computer out?
Do you VPN to it or something?
A $10 wireless adapter and it's on the network .. disconnect the network adapter and it's off
yer choice at any time
Last edited by rharv; 10/14/25 04:20 PM.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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Last Chance! The Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac® Special Ends Today (May 31, 2026) at 11:59pm PDT!
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Our new country & Americana RealTracks deliver a rich collection of acoustic, electric, and roots-inspired styles! We have new country pop (9) with legendary guitarist Brent Mason. There is also a potpourri (14) of bouzouki, guitars, banjo, and more, perfect for adding texture and character to contemporary acoustic arrangements. We’ve added funky country guitar (5) with PG favorite Brent Mason, along with classic pedal steel styles (5) featuring steel great Doug Jernigan. There are more country songwriter styles (8) that provide intimate, rootsy foundations for storytelling and modern Americana writing. Finally, we have “background soloing” acoustic guitar (12) with Brent Mason — simpler, but still very tasty acoustic lines designed to sit beautifully behind vocals or act as a subtle standalone solo part.
Check out all the 202 new RealTracks (in sets 468-488)!
And, if you are looking for more, the 2026 49-PAK (for $49) includes an impressive collection of 20 bonus RealTracks, featuring exciting and inspiring additions to add to your RealTracks library. You'll get new country-rhythm guitar styles from PG Music favorites Johnny Hiland and Brent Mason, along with modern-pop grooves that capture today’s radio-ready sound! There are also new indie-folk styles with guitar, bass, 6-string bass used as a high-chording instrument, acoustic guitar, and banjo. Plus, dedicated "cymbal fills" RealDrums provide an added layer that work very well with low-key folky styles with other percussion.
The 2026 49-PAK is loaded with other great new add-ons as well. Learn more about the 2026 49-PAK!
2026 Free Bonus PAK & 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®!
With your version 2026 for Mac Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, Audiophile Edition or PlusPAK purchase, we'll include a Bonus PAK full of great new Add-ons for FREE! Or upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for only $49 to receive even more NEW Add-ons including 20 additional RealTracks!
These PAKs are loaded with additional add-ons to supercharge your Band-in-a-Box®!
This Free Bonus PAK includes:
- The 2026 RealCombos Booster PAK:
-For Pro customers, this includes 27 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles.
-For MegaPAK customers, this includes 25 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles.
-For UltraPAK customers, this includes 12 new RealStyles.
- MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
- MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
- Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
- Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
- Playable RealTracks Set 5
- RealDrums Stems Set 9: Cool Brushes
- SynthMaster Sounds Set 1 (with audio demos)
- iOS Android Band-in-a-Box® App
Looking for more great add-ons, then upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for just $49 and you'll get:
- 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums with 20 RealStyle.
- FLAC Files (lossless audio files) for the 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums
- MIDI Styles Set 93: Look Ma! More MIDI 16: SynthMaster
- MIDI SuperTracks Set 47: More SynthMaster
- Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
- Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
- RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
- SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
Learn more about the Bonus PAK and 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®!
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