The Big Bad Internet Service Provider Dilemma

*"Do not trouble trouble till trouble troubles you" so said an illustrated character in my Form 3 English textbook. For some reason, those words amused me immensely throughout the rest of my school life although I can't really say I have followed the advice dispensed wholly. Most of the trouble I find myself in always has some other factor that would have influenced it in some sort of way or another... but that's a different story.

In about a week, my one year contract with my current ISP will be over, and I will be free to continue or discontinue their service. If you have been with me on this blog circa 2008, you will probably know that I had some mega ISP issues back then which caused me to tear out my hair in frustration and led me to cancel that account and use a new ISP. While I do not have any major complaints in regards to their connection (except the occasional crawl that could put the slowest snail to shame), they seem to have taken me and my sister for a ride with their pricing scheme. The original deal with them was a flat rate of RM88 per month (26.7 USD) which although is a bit pricey was alright since both my sister and I share it. However, for the subsequent months, they have decided to to charge us RM 118 per month, stating that the RM 88 was only for the first month, so naturally we feel cheated. Besides, in recent months they have introduced newer packages at half the cost!

I suppose the most irksome point with this particular ISP (actually the modem/package) is the fact that it can only be used by one person at a time, and since my sister and I share it, we sort of have to take turns in using it. While not exactly a problem, it's insanely pathetic at times, especially when either of us are in conversation with friends and have to give up the connection at a particular time like a teenager on curfew because the other wants to use it. 

For that reason, I had actually given thought on going back to the old ISP, which gave me problems previously only in the form of not receiving my online payments (on time) because I was paying to their old but not exactly obsolete account for months (Yes, I am an idiot at times) Their connection was alright although it was only 512 kbps but was limited with a 60 hours per month usage which was alright at that time because I was the only user back then. Of course now that both of us will be using it, we would opt for a better package which would enable both of us to use it at the same time,  except that the word better is kind of vague, because some people I know have not very nice things to say about this ISP as well... so I can't help but worry if this changing of ISP signifies the act of troubling trouble, like removing a benign growth or something...

* I'm not too sure if I got all the words right, searches online shows that 'Do not' is sometimes written as 'Never', and 'till' is sometimes 'until'

Picture borrowed from pegasus news