Time was, you had Plain Old Telephone Service over a twisted pair cable, and analog cable TV over coax. When the Internet became available there was dial-up connection over the phone line, and eventually either DSL or cable access. Even if you switched away from traditional telephone to Rogers Home Phone, your connections were complex.
Up until recently I had a spaghetti jungle of wires and boxes, even though all of my communications came via Rogers Cable:
- Ancient Rogers PVR with a hard drive inside, connected to a CRT standard definition TV.
- Two dumb HDTV units connected via coax to Digital TV boxes.
- Rogers Internet modem connected to a Linksys mesh network for wifi access thrioughout the house.
- Standalone telephone modem connected via coax.
It all worked OK after a fashion, but I got a notice that the very old PVR was going to be decommissioned by Rogers at the end of the month – the 24 year old SDTV would not work any longer. This set off a flurry of IT activity at my place.
First, I removed the old PVR and the SDTV. The old TV will have to be recycled.
Next I moved the larger dumb HDTV to the basement to replace the SDTV and got a brand new Samsung smart TV to go in its former place. Very nice.
Next was the start of Rogers Unplugged. The telephone modem, Internet modem, two other cable boxes, coax cable and mesh router setup were all replaced by a new Rogers Gateway, one wifi boosting Pod and three tiny wifi IPTV boxes. A lot of wire and electronic junk went out the door. And I ended up saving about $80 a month on my Rogers bill.
I’m still learning how to use the new TV and I had to reconfigure a wireless printer, but so far I like the new setup. The new gateway – XB8 – takes care of everything.
I remain convinced that modern technology is too complicated for most of us boomers though. Case in point – you can’t configure anything on my shiny new network without a cellphone app. It sure is a long way from the old telephone party line. (If you don’t know what this is, don’t ask.)