I'm going to try Bugspop1's suggestions. I have Xfinity1 and ATT routers, so it may be perilous and require calling them again for help. Also both routers have been replaced in the past 2 weeks because of other problems: The ATT router suddenly and mysteriously stopped allowing any telephone caller ID and calling features...the technician who replaced the router said he didn't know why this happened or what caused it. ATT provides 3 mbps speed, which is (from my experience) not fast enough for Amazon video, so we use ATT mainly when Xfinity isn't working. We have just one phone connected to ATT. The Xfinity/Comcast router was replaced last week because of tv issues. I got fed up with the poor service on the last cable boxes. All channels not HD were stretched to fit the format of our HD tvs. So all the people on tv look like they weigh 500 lbs. Comcast refused for months to provide info to change this in the setup menu of the cable box. So after hours on the phone to them and several trips to their store, we now have tv that shows HD and SD in the proper formats. I also had to accept yet another phone line from Comcast, their bundle, to save money. Their internet/tv bill was $270. The new bill including phone is now supposed to be $190. The stupid downside to this is the Comcast rep said I have to call Comcast on the phone number they provide, otherwise they won't provide any support. I already have 4 phone numbers so this is very annoying to me. After the cable boxes were replaced the internet router was reset by Comcast when they set up the cable boxes. That evening I logged in to the xfinity web site and saw that some videos would play and others wouldn't. CNN wouldn't play anything at all (though accessing the site outside of the xfinity portal allows some videos to play). So I called up Xfinity support who weren't helpful at all. They actually said they don't support video playback help issues on their own site! So their support is less than adequate imho. I tried the suggestions about changing video quality...Amazon works ok in SD. In HD videos start off in very poor quality and gradually get better. I don't use amazon streaming when I'm out of town because the site only streams in HD and would quickly use up my data allowance. Windows Defender is up to date. Nvidia has automatically updated it's drivers several times since I got the MSI laptop. The MSI also did the update where it installed a new version of Win10 (It took about 17 hours). There isn't any software in common on the two laptops. I tried a system restore on the MSI. It didn't help, but it didn't hurt. I uninstalled and reinstalled Adobe flash several times. If I can get inside the router setup menus is it easy to figure out if the routers are allowing adobe flash video? I'll keep working on this....

maifleur, I don't think you're stupid but sometimes you are misinformed and a bit stubborn about it. Telecommunication and infrastructure investments are all about population density and population levels. Another example of that was how rural areas were so late in getting electricity in the 20th century compared to many urban areas that had it many decades sooner. Today, if you want high speed internet and cell phone coverage, living in a rural area is a choice unlikely to be helpful. "Tracfone buys their feeds but so does every other carrier" Very much not true for the larger carriers. Both Verizon and AT+T operate their own networks (mostly, not entirely) and several of the smaller ones do also, in large part. If not, why would there such wide differences in the coverage maps? "People live where they have homes." People usually live where they have employment, not where they have homes. Are you suggesting that someone who owns a home in a 4 house town in North Dakota is going to stay there unemployed rather than move somewhere they can get a job they're qualified to do? I don't think so. I do remember Roaming charges. I even had that happen not that many years ago when I was up in the Sierra foothills in an area that had some little podunk cellular carrier. When the charge appeared on my bill, I called Verizon and they reversed it. The "R" symbol always appears when I use my smartphone abroad because its connection to a non-Verizon system is a form of "roaming".

Well, I found out this morning that Comcast had a major hack a couple MONTHS ago, over 30 million accounts affected. I read it on a site, Comcast never notified customers, which in my book makes it even more egregious. I wondered what was up with the password change stuff going on last month, of course phone rep didn't say a thing. So that's probably what's causing all the spam. And who knows what else. It's like a full-time job keeping up with one's information anymore, it seems every day some major company is hacked. I put a fraud alert on my accounts because of the recent health care system breach -- a few large healthcare systems got hacked this past summer in SE Michigan. Is the convenience of technology worth it? Call me a dinosaur, call me what you will, I don't care -- I grew up in the days before the internet and IMO no, it's not worth it. I'd gladly go back to snail mail and {gasp} waiting a week or two for something, and if somebody stole your purse yea you'd worry about losing maybe a couple hundred bucks and your credit cards, but we didn't worry about identify theft and all that for the most part. (I'm sure it happened but probably only rarely, now it's just so commonplace). We had problems, sure, but I'll take those low-tech problems any day over all this mess that's been created. "Seriously, take action and get a new gmail address." Yes, I definitely have to do that don't I, especially in light of the breach.

FOAS, far be it for any of us to judge, and I know I certainly will not. I fully support parents or grandparents keeping up with family members in any way they can for safety reasons. A couple of examples: My DD always tracks her daughter (our DGD) when she is driving from/to her new home in Kansas. She is now 26 and has lived there almost 2 years now since grad school but we still worry when she’s driving alone, given all we hear about human trafficking. DGD is aware she’s being tracked and knows she is loved. Last summer one of our grandsons finished his freshman year of college and wanted to travel and camp/fish/tour out west. The kid would rather fish than breathe. He rigged his truck with a fold-down camper, solar panels, propane, water, his fishing gear, food, and his black lab and off he went. Our son bought satellite phones to communicate with him and they would talk every night even when there was no cell service. All went well and he camped solo in some very remote areas with no one around. Peace of mind for everyone was key. There was one funny story associated with all this one night but I won’t bore you all with it. Again, this kid is so sweet and good, he knows all this was done with love and care for his well-being. He will be doing an engineering internship this summer, so no chance of a repeat for a while.