| Author | Message | ||
     Mikej |
Looking at options for home use, finally going to dump the dial-up shortly. Any opinions on going with DSL through ATT? They claim I can also go wireless at Starbucks or use a 1-800 number if that isn't available and I'm not at home. I assume I'll have to dial in via a cell phone link somehow if I remotely use the 800 number access. I basically need to get mobile, and our cell phone contract is about up, and our home landline service has become costly, and dial-up basically is like running in mud. I'm about to get a PDA or portable computer of some sort, need to connect to the internet on a regular basis, and still need to be able to receive fax's at home sometimes. Educate me please. Thank you. | ||
| Froggy |
Whos your local cable company? If possible, look into Verizon Fios, its like 1125r and makes even cable look like a Blast with 2 flat tires. | ||
| Mikej |
I believe our local cable provider is TimeWarner. We're also considering RoadRunner. Got no idea what the functional costs of their Pivot plans would run, looking at that a bit now as well. | ||
| Xl1200r |
I do cable because it's my only option in my apartment building. I've had it for years now and don't have any real complaints. I've heard good things about Fios, but I also hear there are two "tiers", the lower and more resonably priced of which is not as fast as a typical cable connection. Cellular connection have historically been s-l-o-w, but things may be a bit better with all these new data networks like Verizon's G3. I'd make sure your area is on a data network (not all are), and take a look at the data plans as some can be quite costly. I know you mentioned cost as being an issue - I currently pay something like $40/mo for cable internet, and they give me a modem and wireless router to use. I have Time Warner cable (RoadRunner belongs to them - it's just the name of the internet service). (Message edited by xl1200r on July 24, 2007) | ||
| Mikej |
That's probably what we'll wind up with, some cable internet wireless TV setup blend so we can use at least two computers at home at the same time. Then we'll probably still have a separate cell plan. Would like to do it all with one combined option. I need to go hit up some of the locals here on the day job to see what they're all running. And I'm real curious what folks like Court and Josh and others are using while out and about as they seem to be able to seamlessly blend talking and posting and being mobile. I probably just need to get started with something basic and get used to it for a year to get up to speed and get the kinks/bugs worked out, don't know though. Thanks for the thoughts so far, it helps. | ||
| Froggy |
Since you were wondering mike, I'm one of the people that post while on the move. I always have a minimum of 3 ways to access the Internet at any given moment. I got a phone (Nextel), a blackberry 7250 running on Verizon, a Nokia N800 Internet tablet that will hop on WiFi or use bluetooth to hook onto the blackberry or nextel for data service. At home, i have a craptastic cable connection from Comcast (Comass, Commiecast, i could go on). I wouldn't bother with cell phone for your primary Internet, as its not much faster than dial up, but its good easy way to get quick access while on the road for a laptop. Get something like Cable, DSL, Fios, and if you still need a landline, get a VoIP service like Vonage. I believe Verizon has a package with getting your cellphone, DSL, and TV all in 1 plan. | ||
| Telewoodski |
Check to see if your local provider has wireless DSL. My local provider came out and installed a "dish" on the building that had a line of sight to the central office. It was setup in a few minutes, and provided me with DSL without the phone line. I dropped the local phone service and pay just the 40.00 a month for DSL, and just use my cell phone. | ||
| Mikej |
We've got US-Cellular for cell service currently which gives good to better than others reception in our home area with only a few dead zones that we've found. We also get the occasional skip and connect with Michigan across the lake every so often, gotta watch for those roaming charges on the bills. I'm kind of liking the new Blackberry Curve, but not available locally yet, and not foreseen with the USCellular folks we've spoken with. I'll look into that Nokia tablet as that sort of device has been on my short list for awhile now. Wireless DSL is one option that ATT offers for our area. Of course that opens up security issues, but with other stuff I'm working on parallel to this I have to address that anyway. I may need a face-to-face talk with the local providers instead of talking on the phone with hard-to-understand not-necessarily-local phone/customer support people to really get to the bottom line of what they offer. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
I have DSL and prefer it to the cable connection we had previously. The problem we had with cable was that because everyone was operating off of what is essentially a token ring network sharing the same trunk, it would slow down as everyone logged in at the same time. You will have to compare available DSL bandwidth capacity under both the Cable and DSL options. If the cable bandwidth with all users is on is still better than DSL with 100% dedicated capacity. I have a couple of folks who have the wireless. It works pretty well, but is limited outside of major metropolitan areas. Both cable and DSL can be networked. The wireless will be very difficult to network. | ||
| Ryker77 |
"I basically need to get mobile" My job requires lots of travel. Verizon cards suck nearly all of the time. Sprint cards are much faster and have more service areas. | ||
| Buellshyter |
The Broadband Reports.com http://www.dslreports.com/ | ||
| Jackbequick |
I have the Times-Warner/Roadrunner cable internet access and it costs me about $64 a month for the Internet and the basic cable TV package (all I want from that is the local stations). I think it would be about $5 cheaper without the basic cable TV The speed is terrific, I am getting 2,767 kbps here in the living room on my laptop (via a 11 Mbps wireless router to a PC in the basement). I get around 3,600 on the PC in the basement, that is on the cable WAN via copper. That is 100 to 120 times as fast as my dial up connection is here. I'm on crappy old pone lines and can't get DSL or anything else. Put any old PC on the connection and leave it on all the time (with a fax/modem) if you need fax service. Most people that want to fax you something can scan it to a file, attach it to an email, and send you a better image faster that way than if they used fax to a dial up fax/modem. An old Pentium II 800MHz is plenty fast enough on a good cable connection. Once you get cable in the house, you can use networking (wireless or cabled) to share the connection with as more computers as you want. The wireless router I'm using cost me about $50 and my neighbors could use it from 100-200 yards away if I wanted to let them. Be a little hard nosed with the cable people, do not going to commit yourself to and pay for the contract (1 year? 2 years?) until you see it working and are happy with it. When they come out and install and hook up, don't sign the paper until you can go online and get a speed check. If it does not work, tell they guy to go away. Cable is a buyers market, Dish and DirecTV are killing them on the TV subscribers. Here is a good speed test: http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ My Last Result on Times-Warner Roadrunner: Download Speed: 2767 kbps (345.9 KB/sec transfer rate) Upload Speed: 356 kbps (44.5 KB/sec transfer rate) Jack (Message edited by jackbequick on July 24, 2007) | ||
| Tank_bueller |
 This is behind a slow wireless connection with low signal. Cable is the baddest thing around here. | ||
| Paint_shaker |
What Ryker77 said... I have a sprint air card, mobile card, whatever you want to call it. I live on the "fringe" of the broadband area, but it still smokes dial-up and I can view most videos with out the chop. I have used it while travelling on the interstate and the speed depends on the location. My lap top is also wireless network capable so when I roll in to T.W.O for March Badness, I can connect with DSL/ Cable speed. | ||
| Prior |
I've got a small local place that does wireless from radio towers around town (the one I ping to is close to 3.5 miles away) and it runs at 4300 kb/s download, 1100 kb/s upload, and I can't complain a bit. $40 a month to them, and a $15 set of TV antennas that gets me 25 channels for free. Other than that I'd have to go with satellite internet, no DSL or cable here... I guess see what all is local, I live in a small town and it works great! | ||
| Mikej |
Funny stuff, I just tried the speed test and it crashed the browser here after reporting a 1426 download speed and a 1458 upload speed. No wonder they're about to slam down an iron curtain on web access here. Thanks all for the additional input, got some homework to do now to figure all this stuff out. | ||
| Jackbequick |
I'd sort of think the browser crash was a fluke, I've used that link thousands of times from about every browser known to mankind. It need Flash player installed but it is hard to find a system that does not have that on it and it is generally trouble free. If you have an adblocker running, it might be the cause of the crash. Disable that for a test if you can. If you are getting 1458 kbps down on a dial up (non-DSL) connection that is about a record. I could certainly live with that speed for everything I do. The numbers can be confusing, a dial up modem connection is normally in the range of 2400 bps to 56,000 bps. The latter speed is also referred to as 56K or 56 kbps. Most home telephone systems will provide speeds in the of 24.6 kbps to 50 kpbs. And 24.6 kbps is painfully slow and what I would get from my home without cable. Tank, That connection is a real burner. Especially the upload speed. I've seen flashes in the 4,000 or 5,000 range but only on down. Roadrunner has throttled the service a little since I started with them 3 years ago. That took about 1,000 kpbs off my download speeds. And they then offered me a "premium service" for another $10 a month or so. That probably would have put the extra speed back but it's not worth the money to me. Jack | ||
| Dick8008 |
DSL is a fixed modem speed. It's lower then what cable will claim and advertise. But in reality it's much higher then what you'll get on cable the majority of the time. Cable is shared space. Yeah you could get up to 10 meg or so download but that's if you are the only one in the neighborhood online at that time. They divide that space by the number of online users at that time. So it changes minute by minute. Also when I worked at Time Warner they advertised 10 meg download but the modems they used were much less. So you NEVER got that 10 meg. You can only get the most out of your slowest devise. This is also assuming no one else is on. IMO cable is not the greatest. I have it, but only because DSL is not avail in my address. But it works fine for me to read this site and check my emails. | ||
| Mikej |
The computer I'm currently on is Flash impaired and the crash was probably Flash related, happens quite a bit here at the day site. Little to no chance of getting it upgraded/updated until our main customer requires it. Also, not a dial-up here but instead a company firewall connection. | ||
| Froggy |
http://froggypwns.com/Files/bwtest.jpg Last Result: Download Speed: 55253 kbps (6906.6 KB/sec transfer rate) Upload Speed: 15801 kbps (1975.1 KB/sec transfer rate) | ||
| Mikej |
I think I'm learning a few things. First, for an update, we got the DSL service, installed and connected and working. Got some little bugaboo on the main computer messing with the shutdown and some process not wanting to close, but will work with them to get it figured out soon enough. It's nice though to be able to sit in the living room with the laptop and check email and what not. Second, it's nice to get the WiFi working for the sidejob office. No more major need to thumbdrive files unless I need to print something there. They have some sort of licensing fee attached to the printer and see additional costs if I connect the wireless laptop to the printer network, but no biggie as I can just log in on their desktops or thumbdrive for my printing needs, but not a major issue since I"m trying to go more paperless. Third, think I ran into a little snag in the initial plans as apparently the cell phone companies some time ago put into place their network protections whereby if I want to surf the web utilizing my cell phone as a modem on the laptop and also utilize the home account by remotely dialing up the access number I've found I need a data account with the cell phone service. Apparently they prefer to charge for data amount instead of cell call minutes when web and email connecting. That's kind of the deal killer there with my current plan options until the contract is fully up. But I can trailer hop to WiFi spots and grab a soda or something to make me legal for free access at several places. Not quite as mobil as I initially wanted, but will work for my needs for now. Plus the real estate market is so wierd right now I may go back to selling and working on bicycles for the side job stuff, and the bike shop has wireless enabled I believe. In the mean time if I need to check personal email at lunch or break times I might look into this system: http://www.google.com/tisp/  Found the link here: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Broadband-By-Se wer-86783 | ||
| Sarodude |
Normally the fiber goes the other way in the toilet. Interesting. -Saro |
