You couldn't pay me enough to use Comcast. I've had so many bad experiences with their support that if they were my only choice, I would stick with dial up too.
So I feel for you. Best of luck!!
[quote="Carol Bratt":1144a005]Dave is after me all the time to do something about it and eventually I suppose I will make the move if for no other reason than to make good old Dave happy! [/quote:1144a005]
If only everyone were so eager to please!
Hi Dave, I'm on dial-up running a 56k modem, tonight when I connected I could only download at 19.2kbs. I disconnected and reconnected a few moments later at 24kbs. The ISP says it's a noisey phoneline into the house. I know it can be a bit of a pain at times.
Hi Ray. Welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear that you are still on dial-up. Is it by choice, or are you in a location where broadband isn't available?
Hi Y'all -
I feel compelled to add my $0.02 to this thread.
I live in the "boonies". Dial-up but no DSL or cable. My only alternative is either satellite internet service (HughesNet) or a wireless service such as AT&T offers. Have used them both simultaneously (I, on one - my wife on the other) and find neither to be satisfactory after having used cable for some time before moving to this location. Without citing actual speed test measurements I can relate the following to you: Both services offer advertized blazing speeds "up to" an enticing value. Neither delivers. More often than not, both services get bogged down in the range between dial-up and DSL. I am led to believe that both have "oversold" their bandwidth resulting in a monstrous decrease in advertised speeds. As Dave has pointed out, my satellite service imposes download limitations which result in a reduction of one's operating speed. Almost down to dial-up, no less!
While initially composing this post I was interrupted by an ominous message ( to which I've become accustomed, Aaaargh) saying that there has been a "Suspected Recent Satellite Link Outage". Start all over. On the AT&T side of the ledger I experienced wide swings in signal strength and bonafide outages. As a result, I've been forced to make the choice between one or the other. On balance, I would have to say - in my experience only - that the satellite service (such as it is) is the better of the two - although marginally. Given my location, I've been forced to choose between the "lesser of two evils".
For anyone contemplating either of the services I've described in cursory fashion, I would suggest taking any and all claims with a 20-pound grain of salt. As an aside, do not let hope spring eternal when contemplating the possibility of a cable company tearing up the roadside in front of your house and installing the internet service of your dreams. If said company deems that they cannot recover their investment in the installed "plant" within a reasonable period of time, then it just won't happen.
I reluctantly accept a less-than-desirable option for my location. But, then, I always have the option of moving into civilization, do I not?
NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love my "boonies" and I'll live with the hand dealt to me.
Respectfully - Richard
Interesting variety of connections to the net. Mindblower talked about satellite connection and said that one still needs a phone line to upload. That is no longer the case. My internet is supplied by satellite and I live about an hour north of Ottawa Canada. This is not a cheap way to be connected, however it is better than dial-up. My hardware cost about $800 CAD installed, and I pay about $80/mo. for 1Mbps down and 128 K up. Rarely hits those numbers which has been a complaint of mine since installed, but what can you do? It is reasonably reliable and rarely goes down. Overall, I am happy with it, as I still remember dial up from when I first moved here. On average, I can download about 2.5 - 3.0 meg file in about a minute, depending on time of day. This provider is Canadian and also offers wireless high speed a little cheaper than satellite, if you are line of sight to their antenna. I am only 8 KMs from the antenna, but because of trees, I can't see it. Maybe a chainsaw for Christmas??
Cheers
"Do Something. If it works, do more of it. If it doesn't, do
something else." - FDR
In my post, above, I stated that I'd live with the hand dealt to me. The following is really difficult to live with!
Monday, December 8, 2008 - 7:15 P.M. Central Standard Time. A system performance test from HughesNet.
Download: 71 kbps
Upload: 34 kbps
Tried an hour ago to download an upgrade to Adobe Reader. Download speed was 12.7 kbps. Gave up on it until much later tonight or early tomorrow morning.
Any of y'all still want to go the satellite service route? I have no choice.
Richard
Richard - If all you need Adobe reader for is to view PDF documents, I suggest you forget about Adobe's bloatware and install the nice little reader from Foxit (it's a mere 3.6mb download):
Foxit PDF Reader: https://davescomputertips.com/free_p ... office.php
cheers.....JIM
WOW! Makes you realize how fortunate you really are! I'm getting constant speeds of 1.12MBps (bytes not bits) down. We really need to work on broadband in the rural areas.
Jim, my friend -
Thanks for the tip. Indeed, the sole purpose of Adobe is for PDF downloads. I'll try your suggestion.
Dave -
The figures given in the above post are not all that far removed from typical. During peak periods of usage those numbers are both typically LESS than 100kbps. Not that much of an improvement over the numbers above. Remember, Hughes and others do not state a MINIMUM guaranteed speed but, rather, a "speed up to" a reasonably dazzling figure. Seldom have I performed a speed test and realized numbers even beginning to approach the advertized maximums. I believe that you recently wrote something about some companies "overselling their bandwidth". This (Hughes) must be a classical case.
As to your personal outrageous and obscene numbers, I feel secure in stating that I and many others feel a great deal of envy toward you even though that envy is tainted with a tad of hate. AAAaaaaaaarrrgggh!!!!!! Why me, Oh Lord?
Respectfully,
Richard
I guess I won't mention my speeds then...
Hey Zigmeister - A very wise decision.......methinks!
JIM
slightly off topic.
you ever notice when the net first started you had to pay true cor-pirate strangle hold extortion rates by the minuet for the net.
Then they did by the hour and day and amount of people useing it jumped in proportion to this like when it became monthly.
But it was still small then came unlimited use and the internet and computers flourished till today.
Now they are removeing unlimited slowly a bit at a time and cor-pirate gougeing is building again. Wonder how long toll its back to the minuet?
You can see the cor-pirate gouge machine gearing up to gouge its self to death look at the mess were in because of the cor-pirate phony gas price gouging and how its brought that hold deck of card house crashing down!
JMHO
I connect via cable now. The only gripe I have with it is the upload speed is only 256kbs at best while download is great at 4-6mbs. I switched to cable from DSL cause I couldn't get but 386kbs at most since I was so far from the hub. As for the cable it's been pretty reliable just spotty outages and they generally don't last long. It was flakey when I first got it but turned out to be a bad modem, since they've changed out the modem it's been good.
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