Upgrading to wireless broadband.

[Saturos]

Woohoo! I'm sick of dial-up. I finally have a good reason to go broadband now because my new job will depend on it. I was thinking about a wireless service (Wi-max cell) like Verizon. Who has it, how much does it cost per-month and what was the down payment?

I have a friend who lives down the road who has it, so I'll be digging up some answers from him too. BTW, before anyone says, "get DSL/cable instead! durka dur!" it's all we have other than satellite broadband because we don't live in a metropolitan area.

 

[Adabiviak]

I had 26k dialup only until I found a similar wireless solution. My cost was metered $75/mo (which means it was typically $80-$100 per month) and a little piece of my soul because their website was decidedly racist.

I finally got the phone company to get the switching to my home figured out (long story), so I'm on regular wired DSL now.

 

[Saturos]

Which company was it? I think Verizon's rates are a little better.

I would switch to DSL if not for the abformentioned issue of being in the sticks. lol

How much is DSL typically these days? I heard the rates aren't much different than any other service.

 

[Pesmerga]

I thought dial-up died with the Dodo.

 

[Saturos]

I thought dial-up died with the Dodo.

dial-up will never die unfortunately. It's still ol reliable for those without access to hi-speed.

In fact, I saw an advertisement the other day in CPU's rag for a USB device that allows dial-up access for those "emergency" moments where hi-speed is not available.

EDIT> It was a wireless dial-up modem. Don't ask me how that's possible, cuz I don't know.

 

[Adabiviak]

Sonnet Networking was the old ISP. They've since cleaned up their website (namely, removed a news/blog feature). My current DSL is $30/mo, un-metered.

Yeah, until a few years ago, 26k was the fastest speed I could get on dialup. That was freakin' awful. Sometimes it'd hit 28k, and I'd be good to listen to some online radio.

edit - will we see you on TF2 with your new internets?

 

[Shamrock]

Just for the record, I'm near positive every service provider has a download cap of 5-10 GB, and if you surpass that in a month, your speeds get lowered dramatically. I mean I know that's how it is for phones, and seeing as how the wireless service is using the phone towers, I can only assume this holds true here as well. Do a little research and go to www.verizonwireless.com and other cellular companies and check their rates and see if they don't have a download cap on them.

 

[JFry]

26k on dial up is pretty damn impressive. I remember when I had it it was rare to get more than 5-10k.

 

[Saturos]

My friend just phoned me and said that his service is through Sprint. I'll be checking into it soon. Oh yeah, and maybe just MAYBE I'll be able to join some of you guys for TF2. Thing is, he said even though he gets anywhere between 150Kbps to 300Kbps, he still has trouble with ping times on most online gaming servers.

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

Thing is, he said even though he gets anywhere between 150Mbps to 300Mbps, he has trouble with ping times on most online gaming servers.

150-300Mbps? Is that a typo or something? 1.5-3.0Mbps? The fastest residential broadband ISPs I've seen only offer up to 8-15Mbps, and business T3 lines around 45Mbps...

I got ATT Fastaccess DSL Extreme 6.0, fastest ATT currently offers (in our area at least), 6.0Mbps down, 512Kbps up, normal download speed is around 700KB/s, costs us $32 a month.

When I had dial up our download speed was usually around 4.5KB/s, we were paying $19.99 a month for that. Around 155x faster for $12 more. The prices for broadband have become so cheap that the only reason now to get dialup instead is availability.

 

[Saturos]

150-300Mbps? Is that a typo or something? 1.5-3.0Mbps? The fastest residential broadband ISPs I've seen only offer up to 8-15Mbps, and business T3 lines around 45Mbps...

I got ATT Fastaccess DSL Extreme 6.0, fastest ATT currently offers (in our area at least), 6.0Mbps down, 512Kbps up, normal download speed is around 700KB/s, costs us $32 a month.

When I had dial up our download speed was usually around 4.5KB/s, we were paying $19.99 a month for that. Around 155x faster for $12 more. The prices for broadband have become so cheap that the only reason now to get dialup instead is availability.

/fixed


I meant "Kbps". lol Sorry.

I wish I had access to speeds like that though.

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

Make sure you check around and are completely sure you can't get DSL/Cable there. I live about 5-10 miles outside of a small-ish city, and I didn't think we'd be able to get DSL here, and I was really surprised when we were later able to get their fastest speed out here.

Do you know how much he pays for his connection?

 

[Saturos]

Make sure you check around and are completely sure you can't get DSL/Cable there. I live about 5-10 miles outside of a small-ish city, and I didn't think we'd be able to get DSL here, and I was really surprised when we were later able to get their fastest speed out here.

Do you know how much he pays for his connection?

To the first: Pretty sure at this point my area's not supported, but I'll check again to be sure.

To the second: Too much

Off topic: I also live in the Sunshine State. The northern part close to Tallahassee to be exact.

 

[-Psy-]

I wouldn't be surprised if you get high latency over wireless broadband.

 

[Warped]

I can't wait till this technology rolls out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaLDF4AJ1hc

 

[Krynn72]

Just for the record, I'm near positive every service provider has a download cap of 5-10 GB, and if you surpass that in a month, your speeds get lowered dramatically. I mean I know that's how it is for phones, and seeing as how the wireless service is using the phone towers, I can only assume this holds true here as well. Do a little research and go to www.verizonwireless.com and other cellular companies and check their rates and see if they don't have a download cap on them.

False. The last three providers I have had didnt limit me. I destroyed them. How do you think people download bluray movies when they're like 15 gigs for one movie?

 

[soulslicer]

What the heck? Why is it so expensive for you guys. I get to pay 50 Singapore Dollars a month for a 6MBPS Cable Connection with a Free Modem+Wireless Router. That's like 30 US Dollars. I can get download speeds of up to 1 Megabyte per second, all the time, except in torrents, where it's half that speed.