Dial up vs broadband

Tradarcher

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2005
Location
Creedmoor, NC
Here is an interesting read. I know that the last survey of this site indicated only a few dial up users of those that responded. Broadband is not in my near future so I cope the best I can. I go to some vendors websites for product or service and can't get the page to load because of all the audio, video and high res pics. Either I get tired of waiting or something times out. Wonder how much business is lost because of otheres in my same situation?
I can't check out the funny video links that are posted or any wheeling vids etc. What is really crappy about it is I live over a mile from the nearest broadband and I live on a deadend road in a rural area. Think if I go door to door and get everyone on my street to agree to sign up from broadband they would consider running it down here?
 
To answer your question yes. When I was younger. about 10 years ago I use to sell cable and security systems all in one package. Well they open a new sub division outside of san antonio so I went door to door and everyone signed up for the security but I found out the cable was not in the area. Well long story short we were able to get cable ran to that area in about 3 weeks time. Largest check I had ever received. Just call the company and see what needs to be done.
 
I'd find someway... ANY WAY.. even that dang satellite thing. 56k is dead.
 
My parents are still on dial up. I must say, dial up is more consistent. It is always slow. It seems with roadrunner things tend to freeze up or not respond more often.
 
I have the same problem where I live. I'm 2 miles from the nearest cable line with no hope of getting cable here. One of my neighbors is a BellSouth lineman and came through and got everyone's phone numbers to try to get DSL and of course all of the neighbors between my house and his either don't have a computer or don't even know what the Internet is. So here I am stuck at the top speed connection of (now try not to gasp) 26K on a good day. So my solution was to buy a laptop and go to my sisters and get what I need cause she has cable. There is another option though, Verizon Wireless has Broadband Wireless the modem is 50-100 dollars depending on how you buy it and the monthly service is 70 dollars, but they do say up to 3 mbps the best I remember. If my cell had good reception where I live that is what I would buy so check that out. It's a helluv alot cheaper than Direcway.
 
rbo1577186 said:
I would cut off my Cable TV and phone before I would cut off RoadRunner.
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Phone has been cut off for a few years, and with teh price of digital Cable, I'm about to cut it the hell off too! but the RR will definitly stay!
 
Kevin Lawler said:
What is really crappy about it is I live over a mile from the nearest broadband and I live on a deadend road in a rural area. Think if I go door to door and get everyone on my street to agree to sign up from broadband they would consider running it down here?
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Kevin, you've been to my house, we finally got Broadband last fall, TW bought out Johnston County Cable and installed ALL new fiber optic down Hwy 42 and to my subdivision, have digital everything now. (we are 9 miles from anything resembiling civilization)

Are there any developments going up near you ? maybe talk to the contractors doing the installs in that area to see if there is a possibility ?

How many folks live on your road ?
is there cable on the main road past yours ?
 
Funny you should ask. The closest cable is more than a mile away. It wouldn't be that close except it was authorized by a Time/Warner service manager that not only lives on a dead end road but an unpaved dead end road. He had it run to his house.
There are lotsa subdivisions going in. Southern Granville is booming. It's like Holly Springs was years ago. They are no closer than 2.5-3 miles to me though.
The first half of my dead end road is single wides and double wides, the second half of it (where I live) is $150,000 to $300,000 homes with a few old homeplaces in between. My road dead ends in Falls Lake. To run cable to my house it would be an appendix more than a mile long. Would be hard to justify it I think.
Earthlink kept buggin me about broadband. I said sign me up. They did and when I got the first bill I called them to tell them that it hadn't been installed. After a little checking on the part of the support person on the phone they changed the bill back to dial up and told me I couldn't get broadband. Nice try.
 
Kevin Lawler said:
Funny you should ask. The closest cable is more than a mile away. It wouldn't be that close except it was authorized by a Time/Warner service manager that not only lives on a dead end road but an unpaved dead end road. He had it run to his house.
There are lotsa subdivisions going in. Southern Granville is booming. It's like Holly Springs was years ago. They are no closer than 2.5-3 miles to me though.
The first half of my dead end road is single wides and double wides, the second half of it (where I live) is $150,000 to $300,000 homes with a few old homeplaces in between. My road dead ends in Falls Lake. To run cable to my house it would be an appendix more than a mile long. Would be hard to justify it I think.
Earthlink kept buggin me about broadband. I said sign me up. They did and when I got the first bill I called them to tell them that it hadn't been installed. After a little checking on the part of the support person on the phone they changed the bill back to dial up and told me I couldn't get broadband. Nice try.
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HAHA. I got cable. HAHA. sorry Kevin, I was feeling your pain until a little over a year ago when they finally ran cable in our subdivision.
 
EVDO

This is the 21st damn century. I've had continuous broadband internet access for +10yrs. How the fawk anybody gets along with dial-up nowadays is beyond my comprehension.

How was that broadband-over-power project coming along? They were testing that down around Fayetteville somewhere, weren't they?
 
I use the puter here at work. My wife just tried to get connected with AOL again, and it took her four (4) hours just to go through the registration process. She then logged off, picked up the phone and called to cancel. I don't know why she waited that long. :shaking:

The phone lines on my road are designed to handle about 10 houses for telephone service. There are now 30+ homes on the road. When we did have the internet if a neighbor picked up their phone, it would slow us down. If too many people were on the phones, we would get bumped. Nearest cable is 2 miles away. Used to belong to Adelphia, but it was just bought by Time Warner. Hopefully someone could put in a good word for me.
 
Honestly I think for many of you guys, the best option is to look into a broadband connection plan via a wireless company similar to the EVDO link provided above. All you need is a cell signal. It won't be as fast as cable but it'll be the $hit out of dialup.

Plus, the ultra-cool factor of being able to take it with you. Going on a family trip? Little Johnny in the back seat gonna drive you nuts? Shut him up by lettin' him cruise the web and have like 10 AIM chats going at once on yer laptop while you drive down to FL.... Ahh, the peace and quite...

I'm going to look into this for my mom's place on Lake Gaston. Same deal, only satalite for TV. Which is funny given all the ritsy-ass homes (not hers) out there... I love the idea of VPNing into my work desktop to run a quick app or two while sitting out in the middle of the lake or end of the dock...
 
Checked the service map. I am in one of the "Extended Digital" areas. I can get a cell signal if I stand on my kitchen table facing north.
 
2 words: external antenna.

It's amazing what replacing the POS antenna that comes with most all cell phones will do for your signal.
 
Wife says get high speed so she can work at home until the price of gas comes down. $45 a week is a bummer. Gonna make the call.
 
Rob said:
Have you looked into the satilite solutions like direcway?
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I looked at that and apparantly they have very poor performance if running a VPN. Too much handshaking.

Latency high with a satellite conection and there's no cure, it's due to the large distances the signal has to travel. Speed of light seems fast until you start talking to a satellite. :)

For just web surfing it's supposed to be ok but working from home may not fly.
 
I am dialed up on Suncom's Edge (Cingular has something similiar) service right now waiting on a friend to show up for lunch. I have gone on some of the download speed test sites and average around 100 Kbs.. Not bad for sitting in the car. It works pretty damn good, but I don't download any huge files.
If you lose Edge and drop to GPRS, it drops to around 56k.
I can't help you on price though, I work for the company and its free.
 
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