Kyle Thomas

The Website of Kyle Thomas (KyleWith)

Kyle’s Internet Usage

Shaw Internet Usage

I don’t have Cable, but I do have Internet. For the last 9 months I have only lived with Internet and watch all the TV Shows I follow, online.

When I think back I would say on average I stream 2 hours of video a day and upwards of 6 hours on a weekend. That is a lot of streaming. I use all the Canadian Network Websites, other streaming sites and Apple TV (Movie rentals and Netflix)

On top of the streaming I do upload photos, podcast etc. on a regular basis.

It surprised me when I looked at my Shaw usage for the first time today. In the last 8 months I have only gone over 60GB in a month once. I’m not even sure why I went over, it seems my usage various by 10GB, odd.

This excites me because one of my concerns moving back to the NWT was the *higher* cost of Internet than I’m use to with Shaw. I have a bandwidth cap of 60GB in Yellowknife (apposed to the 125GB I had with Shaw), but after seeing my usage down here, I’m not so concerned any more.

What is your bandwidth cap?

Out to the Cabin

On boxing day, after my adventure in Walmart, two friends and I went out to a cabin up the Ingraham Trail here in Yellowknife. The cabin is owned by the Yellowknife Scouts, which we were once all a part of and still have a hand in in someway.

Although we only went for one night it was nice to get out of town and just relax. I’d like to say I was able to get away from the distractions of the Internet and technology but upon arriving at the cabin I found the I had full cell service on my iPhone. I was very shock, and well, pleased. We came to the conclusion that whoever deals with the cell network area, whether Bell or NorthweTel, put up another repeater around Prelude Lake, which is near by to where we were.

I took my small camera just for kicks and to give you all a sense of where I was.

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When Things Go Well

Today I had to make two phone calls one was to Northwestel, about my cable and Internet. The other to Rogers to cancel my iPhone, which does not work up here in Yellowknife.

I decided to phone NorthwesTel first as it was going to be the easy call and I was quite honestly afraid of what the Rogers people might say to me. After waiting on hold for only about 5 minutes I got through to a NWTel representative. I wanted to find out what my plan was. The plan itself is 5 years old and because I was out of town over September first when NWTel changed there plans I was unsure as to what I had anymore. Down south I was using about 30gb of my 60gb bandwidth limit, needless to say I was downloading a lot and watching hours of TV shows, so when I came back to Yellowknife I was a slight bit scared my heavy internet usage would kill my wallet. You see I originally thought my plan only had a 20gb limit and I was correct in thinking this, but when September came around and NWTel upped all the plans, my 20gb limit became 60gb. When the representative told me this I was highly relieved, as already in October I was at 21gb (The rest of the family uses it). So one down, one to go.

When phoning any big service company you normally have to enter in all these key codes to get the department you want, and that is exactly what I did.  And I was exactly where I didn’t need to be. So after waiting on hold for 10 minutes and speaking to the first Rogers rep who took all my information and why I was calling, determined she couldn’t help me, she transferred me to the next. The next rep, who I had a slight hard time understanding due to his accent, got me a little closer to my goal. They were all in good spirits and understood my situation, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to use Rogers, it was that they don’t have service in Yellowknife. He was able to verify everything and hand me off to the 3rd and final rep who quickly checked my account and told me that my phone would cancel after 30 days and all I would need to pay for was for the month of October, which was understandable. Once we finished I thanked her very much for her service and she once again apologized for the lack of service in the area.

There you have it the two calls that I thought would end up costing me even more money. I’m in a very good mood because of it. Cheers guys.

The Explanation

I guess I owe some the explanation of where I am and what I am doing.

Let us start at the beginning, where I was down at school in the little town of Dawson Creek, BC. School wasn’t going that great. I was there for business and even though I was finding some of it interesting, I began to feel it wasn’t what I truly wanted to do. On top of that the college’s campus I was at was not a very populated one. There were only 2 other people in all 5 of my classes and almost no student life outside of those classes. I think some of this lack of student life apparent to me was because I didn’t live in the residence. I lived in a nice, little, newly renovated apartment downtown only seconds from a very modern Cafe. The Internet was also 100x more reliable than what the residences apparently had, which I needed. So due to the lack of interaction with people I was starting to go nuts.

On to the other determining factor, which would be my other blog, YkOnline. It seems I have stumbled upon something and I am afraid of it! Turns out I love Yellowknife, who knew. Most of my life I have wanted nothing more than to leave the place, but that has all changed. Having lived in Yellowknife all my life I have gained a lot of knowledge about the place and am constantly seeking to find out more about it. So with that and my passion of Blogging I create YkOnline in May of 2009 and at the end of August of the same year it started to grow and fast. At that time I was just about to start school, which I was excited about and didn’t know what YkOnline could become. Thinking back now and I’m sure most people will agree with this that the turning point of YkOnline was the Municipal Election that just wrapped up. That and the Dump Fire links. The hits on the site went from 30 unique hits a day to 130 overnight and they haven’t come back down. In fact they have grown, I am now receiving around 200 unique hits a day with over 2000 this month. Granted more hits come when I post an article that day. At that point I knew I had something and I ran with it. I kept updating as frequently as I could from down south. I used Google Alerts, the local paper, CBC, and friends online as my sources of information and it worked quite well but it was still difficult not actually being there.

At the beginning of October I hit an interesting point. I was desperately lacking interaction with people in real life. Sure I talked to people everyday, people who were online Yellowknife and else where, but some would say I was border lining on depression. 80% of my time was spent hiding away in my apartment staring at computer screens. I had decided weeks before any of this to come back to Yellowknife over Thanksgiving, to 1. see family and 2. to attend 2 social media gathering and meet with a couple people about YkOnline. But when I came back I made the very tough decision to move back. Although in this post it seems pretty clear but it definitely not.

I feared people would think I was giving up and would think less of me. That and I, myself thought I was giving up and if I couldn’t handle this, how would I ever get anywhere in life. I also had to amazing friends who lived 45 minutes outside of town. They had once lived in Yellowknife and I really value their friendship and knew going back to Yellowknife would mean I wouldn’t be able to see them very often.

On the flip side here as some positive reason for coming back. Family would be one and I guess I’m obligated to put that in here, as I know my father reads this blog. One of the others and a big one would be YkOnline. Like I explain above, that little site I created because I’m passionate about this place grew and gained momentum. I have so many ideas and am so excited about the site I felt I couldn’t continue it unless I was back in Yellowknife and the majority of that is true. I hope to explain more about what I have in store for that site in the next couple days.

So here I am in Yellowknife, ready for a fresh start. I should maybe reread this and make sure it all makes sense but I’m just going to “Go with it” today.

More will be uncovered about what I will be doing over the days to come. Just need to make that clear, haha. Smile.