Anybody Stuck With Dial Up

Well, due to my area I am in the same boat as you. It is a real disappointment. With all the graphics on webpages, it takes forever to load them.
 
DirecPC.. excuse me DirecWay... pardon me I mean HughesNet sucks. They've oversold the capacity on the satellites and for the 29 days (of my 30 day trial) I had it the internet would DIE from about 3PM-Midnight. DEAD. Page timeouts, loading errors, all sorts of nice stuff.

Plus, they have a FAP (Fair Access Policy) which limits you to "about" 350MB downloaded in "about" two hours or they throttle you back to 56k speeds for 8-12 hours.

I use WildBlue, which has a cheaper install (by almost $300), better speeds (1.0Mbps vs 1.5Mbps for $10 more/mth vs HughesNet) and somewhat better reliability.

WildBlue IS NOT PERFECT, e-mail is slower than dialup due to the latency of disconnecting/reconnecting each time a message is downloaded, some webpages load slower (the less graphic intense ones) due to latency, but the more graphic intense websites obviously load faster.

WildBlue also has a FAP, but it's 17GB downloaded per rolling 30 days. Meaning on day 31 your usage total from day 1 is erased, on day 32 day 2 is erased, etc etc etc. In THEORY you DOWNLOAD LESS per month from WildBlue (about 1.2GB I believe) but in PRACTICE you can download more because you aren't being constantly throttled.

WildBlue has also oversold their service, but are launching a second satellite at the end of the year (suppose to...its been delayed at least twice) but they aren't as bad as HughesNet.

BTW: Why do you think DirecTV has been changing the name of their satellite service every two years? BBB REPORTS!!!!



I pay either $70 or $80 a month for a service that's hardly worth it because of the cost of DSL/Cable (WHICH I CAN'T GET) and because of the latency introduced using a satellite. I just need to be able to download..... legal music and game....demos.
 
Hmm.. my dad uses verizon's wireless plan on his laptop. PCMCIA card.. Works really good when when the software isnt erroring out. Pretty fast really..


-Brandon
 
You are using WiFi.

I am using Satellite.

There is a massive difference.
 
kent said:
You are using WiFi.

I am using Satellite.

There is a massive difference.
Click to expand...


:rolleyes:

I was simply stating that the verizon service works great. I wasnt comparing to satellite or anything, n00b. Jesus.


-Brandon
 
The "hmmm...." part let me to believe you were comparing the two directly.

If we can't get DSL/Cable what on earth makes you think something as exotic as Verizon wireless would be available in these remote and niche areas? :eek:
 
lol. Thats funny. Phone signals are everywhere. Exotic or not. I've went to some very remote places in michigan, and I've been able to use that wireless card there. My dad works all over the state of florida and his card works nearly everywhere there.

Do you get a cell phone signal there? Because if you do, you should be able to get Verizon's wireless signal as well.


-Brandon
 
Say it's available here:

1) Can it network? Can I route it's signal to other computers in my LAN?
2) What kind of speeds are we talking about here, and for how much?
3) Promise me this isn't a niche for laptops and small devices and that's it's a feisable alternative to satellite.

It may beat satellite in mobility and latency, but perhaps not with raw speed mefears.

Educate us!
 
I dont think it can network, and I think its to single computers only. You could probably broadcast the signal from your computer to others though like an adhoc network.

Speeds are considered broadband. Definately MUCH faster then dial up. Depends on your wireless signal though. If you have a good signal, speeds are up to a few megs I believe.

Its not a niche. You would need a PCMCIA PCI adapter for use in a desktop, but those are very cheap (read: $10).

Costs are around $80 a month for a data plan, and the cards are around $250 each for a decent card.

This type of service is offered by Verizon, Cingular, Sprint, basically all the major companies..

Speeds would definitely destroy that of satellite.

-Brandon
 
kent said:
You are using WiFi.

I am using Satellite.

There is a massive difference.
Click to expand...
Actually he is using the cellular network called EVDO

There is a massive difference. :p
 
Darakian said:
Actually he is using the cellular network called EVDO

There is a massive difference. :p
Click to expand...


I thought so! But I wasnt sure so I didnt speak up. I knew it wasnt wireless, but I didnt know what exactly it was. Duh EVDO!
 
If your phone is Verizon, then on your phone's display see if it says "1X"- if it does, at least you're in their Express Network. This means 80-140k service. It's not bad- sure beats 28k- lol. And if the display says "1XEV", then you're in the EVDO network. Claims "as fast as 2Mbps", but I've never seen it anywhere near that. Realistically, 500-800kbps. This far superior to satellite, not nearly as latent, and no FAP.


You could theoretically share the connection by setting up ICS.
 
I set something like this up for a few people I work with that live a bit out of town using Cingular's Edge service. Not quite as fast, ~150k/s but a huge available area and easily setup for bluetooth tethering to an XP dial-up connection. And from there, ICS is a walk in the park. These people already have the Data plans on their phones anyway using an 8125, and why pay for net access twice. They drop the phone on the charger next to the ICS PC and everything else is history. Again, not the fastest in the world, but faster than Dialup for those that are in the same boat ans can't get Cable/DSL and don't wanna shell, ANOTHER $80+/mo for Sat.
 
500k-800k is 1/3 to 1/2 the speed of my satellite.

From a couple of good hosts I can typically max out my connection to about 1.6-1.7Mbps (monitored using DUMeter)

WildBlue gurantees 1.5Mbps on the expensive plan (which I have), but the problem here is latency...
 
Yeah I was tortured with the dreads of dial-up for years. I thought I'd never get broadband out here in the sticks. Fortunately a new Wireless internet company was born about a year ago in my area and I've been using it ever since.

It's pretty darn fast actually. Faster than the DSL they offer in town. It slowed down a little bit when Spring came and the trees started leafing out. And there's occasional slow downs here and there which can get annoying sometimes but I can play COD2 or any other FPS online with an average ping of about 80, so I'm satisfied.

Dial up is almost obsolete, I'm suprised companies aren't trying harder to broaden the broadband coverage areas.
 
Dial up has been obsolete for a while. Its almost "dead" is what I'd say. I believe just recently broadband became more common across the states then dialup, but I could be horribly mistaken.
 
atlrocks07 said:
Anyone else beside me who cant get dsl or cable in there area.
Click to expand...

I was on 64k internet for a few years, which was split into 2x32k between me and my brother on the LAN. Yes, 32 Kilo-bits per second. He played warcraft III online, and didnt have too many complains.

Anyways, it wasnt dialup, but I had dialup bandwidth. The upside, ~3-5ms pings to the ISPs router, 60-80ms google pings. For me its not really the bandwidth that seems to affect the interent experiance, but more so with latency. I was on satellite internet at someones house trying to buy a 24-port managed switch... They had the highest package, I cant remember if it was 768k down or 1 meg... Horribly slow, but large pictures loaded quickly. Really, it was far worse compared to dialup as far as clicking and having things happen. The word for this would be "snappy", or lack of it. If my comcast had 500+ms pings to google and other sites, it would definatley ruin it for me.

There was one thing that I found helped. I dont know if it was a feature of Firefox, mozilla, or opera... I honestly cant remember which browser I was using. Lets say you did a google image search. On dialup, thats probably a "im going to go make a sandwhich and do the laundry while this crap loads" thing. With me, it loaded very blocky pictures within a few seconds, then would slowly fill-in the pictures to high res. I have no idea what it was, and I would really love to know... Ill be moving to dialup in about 4 months due to comcasts laughable prices.

Anyone know what im talking about, with the quick & dirty image loading? It was pretty kick ass, loaded puke quality blocky pictures and slowly filled in line by line to hi-res. Wasnt a feature of my ISP, was only particular to whichever browser I was on. One thing that pisses me off with dialup, is you get to reading some page, and it shoves the text around as images load over the next 2-3 minutes :mad:.
 
Yes that was either Firefox or Mozilla or both that did that with the imaging. Just a different way to render images.
 
STL3200AMD said:
Dial up is dead!
Sprint Card FTW! As long as I have cell service i get DSL+ speeds.
Click to expand...

I wouldnt call it dead, or anywhere near it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:USA-2000-population-density.gif

Forget about the east.... Them and their Fios make me sick. Look at the midwest, and west. With a good number of areas having population densities less than 4 people per square mile, does anyone honestly beleive anything aside from satellite and dialup will be avalible within the next 10 years? Every technology is distance limited. Im not sure how far dialup can carry over a pair of copper wires, but I do know its many times further than what any other serivce can cover.

So the big yellow and green areas... Dialup or satellite, take your pick.
 
I am stuck on 28.8k dialup. Can't even get close to 56k speeds. My only broadband choices are satellite or a local Fixed Wireless ISP that will sell you
$500 of proprietary hardware to connect with. If the company goes under, you are stuck holding the bag.
 
bob said:
I wouldnt call it dead, or anywhere near it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:USA-2000-population-density.gif

Forget about the east.... Them and their Fios make me sick. Look at the midwest, and west. With a good number of areas having population densities less than 4 people per square mile, does anyone honestly beleive anything aside from satellite and dialup will be avalible within the next 10 years? Every technology is distance limited. Im not sure how far dialup can carry over a pair of copper wires, but I do know its many times further than what any other serivce can cover.

So the big yellow and green areas... Dialup or satellite, take your pick.
Click to expand...


Some of us are a mere dick length away from DSL/Cable availability. I'm in one of the BLUE areas (look directly in the middle of Arkansas, you'll see a DARK BLUE and three LIGHT BLUES, I'm one of the light blues.
 
I'm pretty sure its either state/federal law that the phone company in your area must provide an ISDN line. I would double check that, then you can just drop the ISDN and get cable/dsl.

Someone please check me on this, Leo Laporte said this.
 
lockheed2266 said:
I'm pretty sure its either state/federal law that the phone company in your area must provide an ISDN line. I would double check that, then you can just drop the ISDN and get cable/dsl.

Someone please check me on this, Leo Laporte said this.
Click to expand...

so if this law is true..then i may be able to get dsl because all my neighbor around me on my street can get dsl but i cant..my phone line comes from behind my house from another street and all my neighbor phone line come from the street i live on.
 
atlrocks07 said:
so if this law is true..then i may be able to get dsl because all my neighbor around me on my street can get dsl but i cant..my phone line comes from behind my house from another street and all my neighbor phone line come from the street i live on.
Click to expand...

Now that has got to suck.

I was on dialup for several years because I lived in the sticks. I moved Jan 2005 and the power company here offers FTTH (fiber to the home). The difference was unimagineable compared to dial up.
 
atlrocks07 said:
so if this law is true..then i may be able to get dsl because all my neighbor around me on my street can get dsl but i cant..my phone line comes from behind my house from another street and all my neighbor phone line come from the street i live on.
Click to expand...


How to get DSL:

Step 1) Buy a gigabit switch.

Step 2) Offer your neighbor $20 a month if you can whore half their connection

Step 3) Put switch in their house, run a long cat 5 cable to your house

Step 4) Plus cat 5 cable into your computer. Wreak havoc on newly high speed internet!
 
Astrogiblet said:
How to get DSL:

Step 1) Buy a gigabit switch.

Step 2) Offer your neighbor $20 a month if you can whore half their connection

Step 3) Put switch in their house, run a long cat 5 cable to your house

Step 4) Plus cat 5 cable into your computer. Wreak havoc on newly high speed internet!
Click to expand...

my neighbor house is about 300 yards away.
:(
 
i called cox comm. yesturday, they say that cable stop at 813 on my street and i am 917...so hopefully they will extend cable to my address. (crossing my fingers) :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top