U.S. Internet Speeds Causing Digital Divide?

On dial-up at home. maybe get around 42k on a good day.

Verizon put in fios on my road earlier this year, and they have service 5 houses down from me. That is the "end of the line" though and they will not extend service the extra quarter mile. (worried about over-subscribing)

Comcast is about a mile a way up the road on the other side. Last time I talked to them a couple months ago they said that they would be happy to provide me with service, and would extend their lines to my house for a sweet deal of $47,000. That's not quite in the budget this year.

So I'm just stuck in the middle in the late 90s.
 
Track Drew said:
oh, I guess a plus is I do only pay about $8 dollars a month for service. :)
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I know some one in your shoes, he pays just $8 a month for dail up, but that is only to make him self feel better. Check out something called WiFire, that thing rocks (before that he used some other hi-gain stuff from hawking). He is in the same boat you are, but lucky for him, some of his neighbors down the street are morons about internet security. Thus he enjoys rich and powerful broadband.
 
Provider: PenTeleData (through Blue Ridge Cable)
Advertised Speed: 15/2
Location: Etters, PA
Cost: $53 (with basic cable) or $67 (without cable)
 
ADSL 3.0, unlimited throughput
SIP, unlimited Canada/USA
package for $60.
 
scihon said:
Comcast - Pittsburgh, PA
$49.95 (part of package)
16/4 - typically can stream 1200 kbs down

occasionally 60 down 20 up when I decide to hook up some of the other modems I have into my multi-wan setup.
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Did you build your multi-wan setup or buy one? If you bought one which one did you get and if you built it, how did you do so? I would like to take advantage of this as well.
 
I've got a Verizon FIOS package that promises 25/15 and is included with phone and cable (with like 100 HD channels) for $120 a month. Add an extra $40 for 2 HD receivers and 1 HD DVR, an extra $10 for 2 Chinese stations, and tax and I'm paying over $180 a month.

When they first installed the system last month, I tested at 25/9. Just tested now and I get:

25.98 Mb/s down
20.27 Mb/s upload

Now that the school year has started, I spend less than 2 hours a day on the tv/phone/internet combined so somethings I feel like I'm not getting my money's worth. But I've signed a one year agreement so I'll just have to tough it out.
 
RangerXML said:
I know some one in your shoes, he pays just $8 a month for dail up, but that is only to make him self feel better. Check out something called WiFire, that thing rocks (before that he used some other hi-gain stuff from hawking). He is in the same boat you are, but lucky for him, some of his neighbors down the street are morons about internet security. Thus he enjoys rich and powerful broadband.
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I've definitely considered something like that. I made a custom antenna with an old directv satellite dish. It got some serious range! I only did passive listening with kismet though. Didn't try to connect to any unsecured APs.

I've always been one of those boring law-following sticklers. :(

Maybe someday a court will rule that leaving your wifi unsecured is the equivalent of putting a sign on your open front door that says "Come on in", but that's unlikely.
 
$60 a month
Cable one
Columbus, MS

8mb/1mb...capped after you download a certain amount, like 1gb in two hours.
 
MrFace said:
$60 a month
Cable one
Columbus, MS

8mb/1mb...capped after you download a certain amount, like 1gb in two hours.
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1gb in 2 hours???!?!

i woulda ditched that ISP so long ago... Considering I can do 1gb in 8 minutes..... Most wow patches are over 1gig...


Im just south of Boston, MA

On fios... 20/5 $45 a month... and as far as I can tell completely uncapped. I've done about 50-60gb a month constantly since I got it (8 months)
 
demingo said:
1gb in 2 hours???!?!

i woulda ditched that ISP so long ago... Considering I can do 1gb in 8 minutes..... Most wow patches are over 1gig...


Im just south of Boston, MA

On fios... 20/5 $45 a month... and as far as I can tell completely uncapped. I've done about 50-60gb a month constantly since I got it (8 months)
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He said you get the 1gb every 8 hour limit after you hit a monthly cap. So for example the monthly cap is 500gb. If he reaches that, then it becomes 1gb every 8 hours.
 
Azhar said:
He said you get the 1gb every 8 hour limit after you hit a monthly cap. So for example the monthly cap is 500gb. If he reaches that, then it becomes 1gb every 8 hours.
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Actually went ahead and looked up their caps....

If you are on the 3Mb plan and exceed 1400MB between the hours of 12pm and 12am they will cap your line...

I call that shitty.. and unacceptable. I woulda switched ages ago.
 
They also flag you as excessive users if you use more than 3Gb a day....

They will either cap your account or raise your rates.. or the scary one..

use any technology to be chosen by Cable One at its sole discretion to slow the user’s service for purposes of conserving bandwidth.
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ouch
 
BFE Thumb of Michigan
At Home
AVCI.net Wireless
34.95 a month 512kb Down/ 128kb up (Only high speed avaible)
Zip is 48471 if anyone wants to know :p
Oh and i get charged for Virus Protection and crap for 3.95 a month
 
Ibanezfoo said:
I keep seeing this said, and without a single shred of evidence... just the standard "its so obvious" etc. I'd like some hard facts to back up these claims.
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pull your head out of your ass and have a look yourself...
 
Surewest FiOS in N-Sacramento
15/15 50$ bundled price

Previous location was South of San Jose and I was paying $70 for 6/1 through Charter. I'm so glad to be charter free more than anything:)


 
Kelby said:
I was part of the Warhammer Online Closed Beta team and the client was passed around by torrent. It was 10gigs. I just want to make sure you realize not all torrents are illegal. This is one of the reasons I stopped using TimeWarner. As soon as they made the announcment that in Austin Tx they were going to try a new price scale on usage, I switched to U-Verse. They initially said it would be about $100 if you download 10gigs a month. The reason was to combat Heavy Bandwith users, blaming Torrents as enemy #1.
I feel price should be based on speed not usage.
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They cancelled the capping plan because so many people called and threathenged to switch, etc. But the trade off is they aren't rolling out DOCSIS 3.0 here I heard.
 
Ibanezfoo said:
I keep seeing this said, and without a single shred of evidence... just the standard "its so obvious" etc. I'd like some hard facts to back up these claims.
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Are you kidding me? Bittorrent is just a delivery mechanism. It's no different than a road from the US to Mexico. Just because there are quite a few vehicles crossing the road transporting illegal goods does not mean that ALL of the traffic is illegal...
 
extide said:
Are you kidding me? Bittorrent is just a delivery mechanism. It's no different than a road from the US to Mexico. Just because there are quite a few vehicles crossing the road transporting illegal goods does not mean that ALL of the traffic is illegal...
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exactly.
 
extide said:
Are you kidding me? Bittorrent is just a delivery mechanism. It's no different than a road from the US to Mexico. Just because there are quite a few vehicles crossing the road transporting illegal goods does not mean that ALL of the traffic is illegal...
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I agree 100%, which is why I want these people making claims that most torrent downloads are illegal to provide some kind of evidence for their statements.
 


ATT (formerly SBC)
(should be) up to 6.0 Mbps downstream
up to 768 Kbps upstream

$35.00/mo at Bakersfield, CA

I'll need to call and see what's up with the download speeds.
 
Ibanezfoo said:
I agree 100%, which is why I want these people making claims that most torrent downloads are illegal to provide some kind of evidence for their statements.
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you must work for mpaa or something..

anyone who has an account on a private torrent tracker, whichever it may be, can show you a couple hundred thousand illegal torrents.. my main private tracker has 400k+ torrents... 99.9999% of which are illegal
 
Imaulle said:
you must work for mpaa or something..

anyone who has an account on a private torrent tracker, whichever it may be, can show you a couple hundred thousand illegal torrents.. my main private tracker has 400k+ torrents... 99.9999% of which are illegal
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I think YOU work for the mpaa and probably the riaa, judging by your statements. I guess you missed the Linux distros, legal movies, game clients, game updates, other software distribution, etc etc etc. But nah, lets just make a general wide sweeping comment and not back it up with any evidence, that works eh? No offense but you'd make a terrible lawyer.

Assumptions != truth.
 
lol. no. I do not work for the RIAA or mpaa. I am a pirate. every piece of software I have is illegal. yes I'm sure there are legitimate softwares that you can get from BT, but the amount of illegal stuff you get from BT outnumbers it 1,000,000,000 to 1.
 
Imaulle said:
lol. no. I do not work for the RIAA or mpaa. I am a pirate. every piece of software I have is illegal. yes I'm sure there are legitimate softwares that you can get from BT, but the amount of illegal stuff you get from BT outnumbers it 1,000,000,000 to 1.
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Ok, while that sounds nice, its still not proof. You have some sort of logs or something to show that "illegal" torrents outnumber "legal" torrents 1,000,000,000 to 1? Have you actually tracked the traffic from everyones' computers worldwide to show not only the type of traffic, but what that data actually is?
 
you're asking me to post proof in public of illegal file sharing? and you want logs? should those logs include IPs and include details of what illegal content is being shared?

lol
 
Imaulle said:
you're asking me to post proof in public of illegal file sharing? and you want logs? should those logs include IPs and include details of what illegal content is being shared?

lol
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don't make us get a warrant!
 
Imaulle said:
you're asking me to post proof in public of illegal file sharing? and you want logs? should those logs include IPs and include details of what illegal content is being shared?

lol
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To do otherwise you would just be posting assumptions or opinion. How about just some simple traffic logs, for everyone with an internet connection on earth. A simple mrtg graph or something. People, and the media, love to throw around numbers like "1,000,000,000 to 1" but nobody ever proves that claim. Throwing out numbers is not even speculation, its just opinion or assumption.

The reason I'm giving you trouble about it is that the media does the same exact thing, throwing out BS. Then ignorant people become "concerned" and next thing you know we have bandwidth limits or outright blockage of torrent traffic to keep us "safe" or prevent "illegal" activity. Shit like this wipes out the "legal" activity as well. I don't care if people pirate things, doesn't bother me at all... but I don't want politicians deciding what I am allowed to download and how I am allowed to download it. Of course you and I both know if they ban or block this, another technology will pop up to give us what we want, but right now torrents seem pretty efficient.
 
k. sorry. it is my opinion that illegal torrents outnumber legal torrents 1,000,000 to 1
 


This is my friends dail up, also what I'm posting on. Broadband ends right across the street from him. Hi-gain antennas FTW!
 
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