Finally Getting Broadband

[Steve Mehs]

I’m finally making the jump and joining the year 2000. :D I can’t deal with dial up anymore. I looked into ISDN and wireless solutions after being mentioned in another thread here, but both are nonexistent in my area. Being that I live 20 miles from my central phone office DSL is not an option, provided Verizon even supports DSL at that office. And plus I don’t like Verizon much more then I like TW. I looked hard at DirecWay. It’s not so much the $60 a month that I have a problem with, it’s the $600 in hardware fees and $100 activation fee along with the 15 commitment and 169MB per 4 hour policy, that turned me off.

And so it goes Road Runner from Time Warner Cable. $29.95 for the first six months, $44.95 + taxes, franchise fees and whatnot afterwards. No installation fee, no activation fee, no contracts, modem is free and there’s no rental fee on it. Installation is set for September 5th between 8AM and noon. Personally I can’t wait, but at the same time I leave a legacy behind. I’ve been an Earthlink subscriber since May 22, 1999, would have loved to subscribe to Earthlink Cable but they don’t offer it with my franchise.

Then after the installation, my next project will be setting up a wireless network. I’ll give my mom my old computer so we can surf simultaneously.

Approx 1.13 Million more seconds until I get high speed internet :D

[Mark Lamutt]

Welcome to the '90's Steve... :D

[cdru]

Being that I live 20 miles from my central phone office DSL is not an option, provided Verizon even supports DSL at that office. And plus I don’t like Verizon much more then I like TW.I still would have checked with Verizon on DSL. Many locations, especially that far out, are serviced by a remote terminal. Think of a RT as a mini-CO. Your distance measurements start at the RT, not at the CO the RT is attached to.

No matter which way you go, broadband is always better then dialup. I force my kids to eat ramen noodles every meal before I have to give up my DSL.

[Steve Mehs]

I did check with Verizon a while back since we started getting promo material in the mail about DSL, I thought that by some miracle it was offered in my area, but to find out it was just a mass mailing to everyone who has the a zip code of 14004.

My zip code is 14004, but my towns zip code is 14102. My town is dinky and the only ones who have a mailing address of Marilla, NY 14201 are those that live a mile radius from the town hall. The rest of us have zip codes and mailing addresses for other various surrounding towns. Now if I lived just two miles north from where I do now, I'd still live in the same town, but my phone exchange would be that of the town north of me and I would be on the border of eligibility for DSL. This area is so screwed up when it comes to phone exchanges, area codes, postal borders, police jurisdiction, school districts and actual physical town borders.

Actually Mark it's more like welcome to fall of 2001 for me :D Prior to then, other then what was DirecPC, I had no other broadband options, so it wasn't my fault, it was my towns for being out in the boonies :lol:

[cclement]

Same with me, being out in the boonies, I couldn't (and still can't get DSL) so I called Comcast for the broadband. I couldn't be happier! It allowed me to get rid of my phone landline, the only people who called me on it were telemarketers anyway! All my family and friends used my cell. As much as I hate cable TV, I would never give up my cable broadband.

[TNGTony]

There should be NO FRANCHISE FEES on Road Runner only service. The FCC found in one of their IDIOTIC rulings that this was not considered a "cable" service and therefore not subject the the franchise fees.

See ya
Tony

[JM Anthony]

There should be NO FRANCHISE FEES on Road Runner only service. The FCC found in one of their IDIOTIC rulings that this was not considered a "cable" service and therefore not subject the the franchise fees.

See ya
Tony
Good call, Tony. You're absolutely right.

We've got our cable modem service via Comcast and after 4.5 years, I don't know what we'd do without it. My teenage daughters have taken over my old computer room, regularly using the 2 PC's for Internet "research." Ma and I have a couple of WiFi enabled laptops that keep us connected with "work" as needed. Very cool.

[kwajr]

so time warner doesnt offer earthlink in your area?

[Scott Greczkowski]

About time Steve. :) I have COX and they just increased out speed from 3MB to 5MB at no additional charge. :D

Broadband rules!!

[Five Hole]

Does TW not charge extra for not having any sort of cable TV serivce? Are you subscribing to a lifeline type service? It seems most cable companies are doing this now and it really irritates me.

[ClaudeR]

Verizon is spotty at best. I live in a very close suburb of Buffalo, directly between UB Amherst and Main Street Campuses, with a Major mall 2.5 miles away, a CompUSA with a huge internet backbone 2 miles away. NO VERIZON DSL. I have called several times. You cannot trust the web site, but Adelphia is my only option, it's way too expensive. Bummer.

[Steve Mehs]

Thanks for the heads up Tony, when I first inquired the lady on the phone said there would be franchise fees, but she must have been mistaken, or ill informed. That price includes my penalty for not subscribing to cable TV. If I had a subscription to cable TV (analog or digital), the regular cost would be $39.95/month. A $5 difference, I can deal with that. Time Warner is cheaper then Adelphia around here. If I lived 5 miles west of were I do, I'd be in Adelphia country and Power Link would run me almost $60/month, if you have Digital Cable it's $45, analog $50, no cable TV $55 or $60. The only Earthlink broadband options I'm eligible for is satellite from DirecWay, no Earthlink Cable or Earthlink DSL. Don't know why Earthlink Cable is not offered here, but I wish it was.

I was just thinking back to why I originally chose Earthlink dial up. Talk about lame. It was my last year of middle school, and I wanted o reassure my geekiness, so instead of going with an ISP that offered an email address ending in the top level domain .com, like the 95% of other ISPs out there I went with Earthlink since there’s ended in .net, and I'd be different. Also it didn't hurt that I was able to get a $2 discount thanks to my moms Sam’s Club membership and now AARP.

[SimpleSimon]

Hey Steve & cclement: You're NOT in the boonies - you not only have cable, you have broadband cable! That's CITY, guys! :D

You probably even had dial-up at like 40-50K instead of the 26K maximum we get.

As for screwed up boundries, 80816 & 80820 are in 2 different counties, 2 different DMAs and yet they are so jagged that 2 adjoining houses could have different locals.

[Steve Mehs]

Hey cool Claude. I know the area quite well. I’m not too far from you. I go to school at ITT Tech on Millersport and N. Forest less then a mile away from UB North, I frequent the CompUSA and Best Buy quite frequently, I prefer the Circuit City in Cheektavegas over the Amherst location though. :D I guess I’m kind of lucky being out here. If you go from west to east you have South Buffalo-> West Seneca->Elma->Marilla. Amazing I live like 12 miles from the city of Buffalo but my cable company is TW of Rochester.

[ClaudeR]

Steve - I'm right in between Millersport, Sweet Home, Eggert, and Sheridan. I still can't believe there's no Verizon. I was out in Elma on Sunday, can't believe it's TW. How are they for service? I like Adelphia, but I only sign up for the specials, wait 120 days, and sign up again. Sometimes they forget to turn things off for a while, so I dont even have to wait the full four months to be a "new" customer.

[Steve Mehs]

Hmmm sounds like Amherst but your IP looks like the Ken/Ton area or maybe I'm just intepreting the host name wrong. :)

Elma is the beginning of Adelphia. I don't know if you know where it is, but Town Line Rd is the official unofficial Adelphia/TW border, coincidently also the Elma/Marilla and Lancaster/Alden town borders. Elma and Lancaster are Adelphia, Alden and Marilla are TW of Rochester. Here in Marilla and Elma our Verizon CO is East Aurora. For broadband, TW is pretty good from what I've seen. As a TV service, they were less then desirable 6 years ago when we dropped them but they have cleaned up their act a little, but I could never go back to their cable TV services.

Here's the map of their service area

http://www.twrochester.com/images/products/map.gif

if you go onto the home page and select programing or somthing to that effect and select the Erie line up, you'll see what channels they offer here.

[Steve Mehs]

Very valid point Simon :) Right now I'm connected at 27.7 K. I used to hit the low and mid 40s all the time, but lately 20s-30s. A few weeks ago I connected at a whopping 5.2 KBPS. Scott gets 5MB I get 5KB, that's fair :lol:

[DonLandis]

Comcast just sent me a letter bragging that my business account will now be at 4Mb fixed with an upload of 0.5Mb. As a business account I get that speed and it doesn't vary like the consumer accounts do and I get my own AE rep to call with a guaranteed respoinse same day service. Much of what I do is considered mission critical stuff so I have to have that sort of connection ISP. It was either that or go with my own T-1. The good news is that my Business account only costs $99 a month for unlimited bandwidth. They do limit my e-mail storage to 125 Mb, though. Anyway, This past Saturday, was the switchover and I noticed the speed difference immediately. About 8 to 1 improvement in time over my old connection which was regulated at 0.5Mb down and 256Kb up. Never did understand why they regulate the upload speed so low like that.

[Visitor]

Check this CNET website; it can test your internet connection and tell you the real speed you are getting. Rarely does DSL or cable really give you the speed they say they are.

http://google2-cnet.com.com/7004-7254_7-0.html?subj=internet_speed&part=google2-cnet&tag=291516

[DonLandis]

You're right! It's a half MB low, oh, two others here in the office were surfing the internet at the time maybe that's why. It must have been a shared result.

[DonLandis]

Tried a Google search and this was the first site in a long list for "speed test"

That's a bit more like it!

[kwajr]

[QUOTE=Five Hole]Does TW not charge extra for not having any sort of cable TV serivce? Are you subscribing to a lifeline type service? It seems most cable companies are doing this now and it really irritates me.[/QUOTtw does not charge a fee here

[kwajr]

Check this CNET website; it can test your internet connection and tell you the real speed you are getting. Rarely does DSL or cable really give you the speed they say they are.

http://google2-cnet.com.com/7004-7254_7-0.html?subj=internet_speed&part=google2-cnet&tag=291516
in my case i get about double what they average here full 3mbs almost always

[Jacob S]

I cant get cable broadband here, no wireless, and Verizon says that I am too far from their office to get DSL. I am in between two towns that get DSL, 7 road miles from each of them. It seems like I will never get it unless Verizon does some major upgrades around here or the cable company gets it in which is not even digital yet but only offers like 20 channels. Satellite is the only option but by the time I get something and pay a lot of it something a lot cheaper (and sometimes better) comes out not long after that or they end up lowering the price after I buy something like that.

[BobMurdoch]

Verizon DSL is only $30 a month including MSN Premium around here, but Cablevision has faster transfer speeds. I'm paying $50 a month since I don't subscribe to cable and they don't offer a broadcast only service, but it is nice to have local weather channel info and analog cable available in an emergency via a splitter (haven't used it in a year, so no anti piracy rants please.... I'm not stealing it, they are sending the signal into my house and overcharging me for internet access)

[Visitor]

You're right! It's a half MB low, oh, two others here in the office were surfing the internet at the time maybe that's why. It must have been a shared result.

Probably so. Cable speeds will vary depending on the number of people sharing the connection. DSL speeds should remain pretty much constant, but probably not the full 384 Kbps or 768 Kbps promised.

Verizon DSL is only $30 a month including MSN Premium around here, but Cablevision has faster transfer speeds. I'm paying $50 a month since I don't subscribe to cable and they don't offer a broadcast only service,

That is my complaint about cable internet service. It isn't available where I live yet, but if and when it is, I will probably stick with DSL. My cable company doesn't offer broadband only, and I have no interest in subscribing even to their most basic cable TV service, since I am a Dish Network subscriber. I work from home, and I wish the forced bundling of broadband and TV service by the cable companies were illegal.

[BobMurdoch]

I have Verizon DSL at my office and Cablevision Optimum Online at home. The DSL maxes out at about 1 Mbps while the cable modem maxes out at about 3 Mbps. Also, I rarely experience any slowdowns due to other users. The DSL is more flaky however. Every few weeks it will go a day or two at really slow speeds and then magically fix itself a few days later. The cable modem just works without a hitch (although I had an occasional problem with a bad connection (probably due to a weak connection), it hasn't reoccurred in about 6 months).

Both are adequate (especially compared to dial up) but the cable modem is easier to hook up AND you get the benefit of free analog cable if you want to hook up a splitter (which THEY gave me in the kit that came with the modem, and gave me instructions as to how to hook it up -- I guess they assume EVERYONE must subscribe to their cable service).

[lee635]

Yeah, verizon also bundles a sub to the mcaffee firewall and antivirus too, so that helps save some money as well. the wife likes teh msn premium, especially the online photo site.

[BobMurdoch]

Best thing about MSN Premium is the free subscription to mlb.tv...... Free out of market baseball from your computer with a broadband connection.....

[cdru]

I have Verizon DSL at my office and Cablevision Optimum Online at home. The DSL maxes out at about 1 Mbps while the cable modem maxes out at about 3 Mbps.You should be able to get at least 1300kbps if not higher with VOL being in an ex-BA territory. VOL overprovision your lines to take into account the PPPoE overhead so speeds closer to 1.5mbits are common. Do you know how far from the CO you are? I assumed you've already adjusted your MTU and RWIN values properly?

[kwajr]

I have Verizon DSL at my office and Cablevision Optimum Online at home. The DSL maxes out at about 1 Mbps while the cable modem maxes out at about 3 Mbps. Also, I rarely experience any slowdowns due to other users. The DSL is more flaky however. Every few weeks it will go a day or two at really slow speeds and then magically fix itself a few days later. The cable modem just works without a hitch (although I had an occasional problem with a bad connection (probably due to a weak connection), it hasn't reoccurred in about 6 months).

Both are adequate (especially compared to dial up) but the cable modem is easier to hook up AND you get the benefit of free analog cable if you want to hook up a splitter (which THEY gave me in the kit that came with the modem, and gave me instructions as to how to hook it up -- I guess they assume EVERYONE must subscribe to their cable service).
by the
way they are supposed to put traps in the line to block out the signal but they did not on me i get 1-99 free

[MarkA]

My DSL was terrible. Both phone and cable here are very small companies. DSL started at 512kbps for $50. Now it's 256kbps for 35, 768 for 45, and 1500 for 55. Phone service REQUIRED. Here's the real kicker - high latency and packet loss many times, and at the best of time the 1500 maxes out just over 1200. 512 maxed out at just over 400. 256 up on all plans (except the 256 k which is 128k). The cable company is 3000/256 with those being REAL, reliable speeds. In fact, upload can be slightly over 256. Lower latency, faster connection. It just blows away DSL. But the local phone company is a bad joke, I can see where DSL with a good phone company could be better. Of course, good cable could be a lot better too...

[Jacob S]

Where can I find hardware that would allow me to have a wireless signal transmitted over an area of 5-10 miles (through trees and some hills)? I would like to transmit the signal from someone that has DSL or Cable broadband so that I can get high speed internet service at my house. I have one laptop with 802.11b and the other laptop I have has 802.11g built in.

[kwajr]

http://www.netscum.com/~clapp/wireless.html home made out of a pringles can not sure how far ,but here is a link showing how they got it to go 55 miles http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-08-09-wifi-competition_x.htm and here is a link to a 15 mile kit maybe you could copy the ant design
http://www.provantage.com/buy-73coc015-11-mbps-wireless-lan-building-bridge-wi-fi-15-mile-range-3com-networking-accessories-3crwe91096a-shopping.htm
http://www.3com.com/products/en_US/detail.jsp?tab=features&pathtype=purchase&sku=3CRWE91096A

[SimpleSimon]

Jacob: The killer is "trees and hills". WiFi (802.11) requires a reasonably clear line of sight. If you don't have that, you're not going to get very far. :(

[Jacob S]

I read an article in the retailer satellite forums where there was some hardware that could go about 10 miles through trees but could not get a link to where I could get that hardware. I may be able to get by with 5 miles seeing how road miles would be longer than air miles and that I could find someone that is close to the limits that DSL or cable serve to an area.