When I got married and moved out of my parents’ house last January I lost a very dear thing to me — unlimited broadband Internet access.

Oh the humanity!

Before that I spent my bandwidth as if it were water — downloading videos I had no intention of watching immediately, running a personal text-based role-playing server, clicking through link after link on Wikipedia, soaking up my brains with trivial knowledge that had little or nothing to do with my current tasks at hand. (Mame chishiki!) I even ran a Shoutcast stream off my PC, playing space ambient, game remixes, and radio programs for the few friends who knew of its existence. (This is Radio Morningstar.)

I had all the knowledge and resources available online at my fingertips. I could watch new anime and TV shows as soon as some enterprising soul would upload them onto the net. I could Google anything I needed to do research on, including laws and decided court cases. I could manage my tiny forum-based community all from the comfort of my room. And my Plurk karma, well.

Then… nothing. Not even dial-up. I found myself going to coffee and donut shops just to use their unlimited Wifi. I found myself going to work and finishing my tasks as quickly as possible so I could squint at my websites through the tiny screen of my Eee PC. I fell out of Plurk nirvana. My online RPGs stalled. All the online friendships I had carefully cultivated all this time withered from neglect. Eventually I bought prepaid dial-up cards to try to get some form of access but was then cruelly reminded of just how slow a website could be at 4 kilobytes per second, let alone download crucial drivers larger than 1 MB. And tabbed browsing of multiple sites? Please, I was lucky if I got one page to load fully without the connection bugging out on me. Did miss the sound of modem connections though. At least, until I heard it over a dozen times in one night.

My wife provided me with a stopgap measure — one of those HSDPA dongles from Smart. I soon discovered that I had to hang the USB extension cable on the handle of one of the windows in our alcove if I wanted any connection stability whatsoever. And if I got a cellphone call at the same time I was online? Poof, dead connection. Thing is, Smart charges P10 for every 30 minutes or fraction thereof. Sounds reasonable until you realize that not only doesn’t Smart automatically disconnect every thirty minutes (an option I think the service sorely needs) but if the connection drops thirty seconds after you connect, you’re down ten bucks as you were online for the whole thirty minutes. It’s not even the cost (which is considerable when you add up all the prepaid cards I spent over a month’s time), it’s the fact that when time is up, you have to trudge all the way down to your closest card dealer to get your fix. And some still say the Internet isn’t addictive.

Before you think I’m bashing one telecom company at the expense of another here, I was told that I had gotten the best option given the circumstances, since Globe’s coverage wasn’t that good yet, despite the fact that they charged per 15 minute block. Small consolation considering I’d still be on the clock. Yes, I know there are unlimited plans, with choked bandwidth. Not an option. Plus I have a huge GPRS charge on last month’s cell phone bill since apparently Globe defaults to per kilobyte charging until you go through over P1,500 pesos worth of data, then they helpfully inform you that there is a much more reasonable time-based option. Better late than never.

I found myself squeezing everything I needed to do in thirty-minute blocks. Being online was like a mad rush to get everything done. Anyone who has ever written a blog knows that typos materialize on them like mold on bread, and the urgency of an impending 30 minute block just made it worse.

I tried over several months to get the two service providers who seemed to have a deal with my building to hook up my DSL. One of them never returned my calls after I asked how reliable the connection was over text. The other never even bothered to reply.

Last week as I was paying my electric bill, I idly inquired about getting Internet access for the condo again. The helpful administrator informed me that Globelines started offering their unlimited 1Mbps broadband in our building, and also told me not to even bother with the other two providers anymore, if I wanted to save myself the aggravation.

When I finally got broadband hooked up at the condo, I was ecstatic. After all, I had a grand total of five PCs at my place and only one SmartBro dongle. (I love that word. Dongle.) With wifi set up throughout the unit they could all be much more than they were. I reveled as each one of them discovered the new WLAN I eagerly set up, I rejoiced as I input the encryption key, I cackled as I forwarded ports on my router.

Then I found myself anxiously timing my sessions, as if I were still on the clock. Old habits die like bad grass, apparently. I’m still re-learning how to lavishly waste the abundance of unlimited broadband. I still keep thinking I need to disconnect as soon as I post this. I wonder what I could spend this bandwidth on…

"Hey you! Psst!"

Hmm? Oh. Look, the new fansubbed Haruhi episode by A f k  is out.

…Click.