Registered: Mar 2000
Location: South Jordan, UT, USA
Posts: 22

I live in an area where there are no cable internet services, and no DSL. I think (actually i've heard) our area uses fiber optic lines. Is there any other alternatives?

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 638

Well, If your really rich you have two alternatives. The first, most expensive, and best is a T1 line. That's what many small businesses use to link their entire ofices, but I know that the dorms at MIT have indivual ones for their residents, so it can be done at home.
Your other alternative is a two fold. You can either get one way satillite, and use your old 56k modem to up-load, or you can try to find two-way satillite.
With the one way you have to have two internet accounts. One of these accounts is used to upload data to the net (requests, and other people downloading off of you), and another the other one (satillite) is used to download. Because most of your time on the net is spent downloading material, this will greatly speed-up your surfing, but it will not be as fast as DSL or Cable.
With the two-way the satillite does all of the up-loading and down-loading, but (I might be wrong) I think that you can do only one at a time. This is alright if you don't want to multitask, but you can;t download a song on napster and surf the net at the same time.
So... you really don't have many alternatives, but the obvious which is to wait until some company comes out to you and gets DSL or cable.
BEN
PS. Just though of this. I've only read about two-way satillite, and havn't actually seen it in use. Even in all the places I've been none of them have had company's that do it. But what I read said that it is avaible in area's where there is no other service.

Registered: May 2000
Location: St. Paul, MN
Posts: 1429

their are, but Expensive

Their are other alternitives(sp), but they are expensive. Fiber optic is probably more expensive then satilite, but fiber is faster. I would wait until MSN brings out 2 way satilite. It should be about 50 dollars a month. (I think...). It has to face south. I would go with that. It is avaiable(sp) all over the US and probably canada. (I'm assuming you are from US or Canada) . Hope this helps..

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 638

Miradu2000
sorta wierd that we siad basically the same thing and posted at the same time.
BEN

Registered: May 2000
Location: St. Paul, MN
Posts: 1429

oops never mind this message...

Registered: May 2000
Location: St. Paul, MN
Posts: 1429

I agree..
That IS weird

-miradu2000

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Chandler, AZ
Posts: 289

I have used a two way wireless highspeed internet connection through Sprint Broadband -- Granted, this is not available in all areas, but the technology does work. Sure, not as fast as a T1/Fiberoptics/cable modems/etc but still much faster than a 56k connection and if there are no other options, its great.

Joe

Registered: Jan 2000
Location: Twin Cities, MN
Posts: 1683

Cerulean:

How fast IS the sprint wireless technology? Their site is so incredibly bad, that I can not actually find any specifics on actual speeds.

They say "up to" 100 times faster which means absolutely nothing in marketing-ese.

Just curious...

As for two-way sattelites...they are coming, supposedly by Winter. I think one of the major companies is going to be using one of the already established hardware set ups (dishnetword, DirectTV, etc...)

Alas, I can't remember who...though I'll be the first to dump my local phone company and cable company and finally go completely wireless at home.

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-David Byrne

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Chandler, AZ
Posts: 289

homer -- The place I helped install the wireless system has about 25 computers hooked up to it (via a linksys router) -- I believe the average transfer rate is around 80K/sec .. sometimes it will peak up to around 150K/sec --- This seems to be on par with most DSL offerings I have dealt with (however, DSL has options to increase the bandwidth), however, a cable modem connection is generally much faster (up to 300K/sec or greater (depending on network traffic, site limitations, etc..)). As far as upload speeds are concerned, I have done transfers from the Sprint wireless to a cable modem at around 40K/sec (during normal business hours on files in excess of 2MB)..

The speed of course has a LOT to do with the providers. I have heard of a wide disparity of transfer rates between providers in various geographical regions (I think a lot of this has to do with the local competition). I'd imagine to get the best bang for the buck is to simply ask people in your area that have the competing services and see what they get for transfer rates, reliability and technical support.

Joe

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: McLean, VA USA
Posts: 216

Vifon,

Do you know who put in the fiber? If it was the cable company than you may want to hold on a bit. Laying fiber to replace copper cable is the first step the cable company must take to start up cable internet access. They laid fiber in our neighborhood and it was almost a year later before they started offering cable modem access to the internet. If the phone company laid the cable, then it probably just means that they are expanding their digital business offerings since DSL runs over copper. Although, I think that between switches and such the DSL signal can be run over fiber, not sure though.

Other options have been pointed out. A couple of notes about T1/Partial T1/ISDN. Full T1 is VERY expensive, but very fast. It runs at 1.5MB. However, it also costs about $1500-2500 for installation and anywhere from $1000-up/month for the service. Partial T1 is about the same for installation and about half of the monthly (although that can vary since they usually charge for the actuall amount of "use" (data) that is done in a month). ISDN is cheaper. $200-300 for installation and $75-150/month for the use. However, ISDN top speed is 64K.

All of these options (T1, partial T1, ISDN, DSL and Cable Modem) are "always on" technologies. If you should happen to invest in one of these, you should also protect yourself and your home computers by installing some sort of firewall software or hardware. These "always on" connections are the kind of connections that hackers look for to take advantage of to use them to perform Denial of Service (DoS) attacks on web sites. Firewall software/hardware that is correctly configured/setup will help to prevent you becoming an innocent pawn in some DoS attack.

By the by, prices are rought guesstimates based on prices here in Virginia.

Hope this helps.

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What the Heck! It's what I want!

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 638

quote:

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Originally posted by visor empowered
Full T1 is VERY expensive, but very fast. It runs at 1.5MB. However, it also costs about $1500-2500 for installation and anywhere from $1000-up/month for the service.

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Hey, I said it was the super rich

quote:

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However, ISDN top speed is 64K.

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Actually, top speed for ISDN is 128, not 64. That is why there is always an option for ISDN 128 and 64 when doing media downloads form a site like CNN.
BEN

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: South Jordan, UT, USA
Posts: 22

quote:

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Originally posted by visor empowered
Vifon,

Do you know who put in the fiber?

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Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 638

quote:

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Originally posted by vifon
I feel a satellite connection would be a good idea, if it were a reasonable price ($30 a month sounds good).

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Registered: Jan 2000
Location: Twin Cities, MN
Posts: 1683

There are often other variables that prevent you from using DSL. Sometimes, you can be closer than 2 miles, but there may be a coil of wire a mile long just sitting there between your house and the switching station (this HAS happened a block from my old apartment...I could get it, but the people across the street couldn't!)

Another problem is the use of digital splitters that split a regular line into two. Apparently this works for voice, but kind of prevents it from being used for Data. Sometimes, in newer neighborhoods, the phone company is just too lazy (or unable to meet demand) for all of the new lines they need to put in, so they 'cheat' with these digital splitters.

I've heard of new suburbs taking up to 9 months to get a phone line installed.

As for Qwest, they've slowly been enticing me to think that they are not USWest anymore. I have a deep hate for USWest, but today I received a letter from Qwest saying that my 256K DSL has now been upgraded to 640k downstream...at NO cost.

Maybe they aren't so bad...

__________________
We're all naked if you turn us inside out.
-David Byrne