Good Broadban for a not so good location

Zero1

Hello everyone I was wondering if I could get some help with broadban,

See I live out in a lets say isolated part of Missouri and I desperatly want broadban, but i have two very frustrating problems.

1. The only broadban providers that can reach me are cable and satilite, which cuts my choices in 1/3rd

2. Since I'm in such a isolated area i get fees up to the wazoo (I think its cause either most companies dont want to go out of there way to get here or thier lazy.)

If anyone has a cheap and reliable provider for me to look at please say so. I'm kind of desperate with all the new games coming out requiring broadban I can see im quickly being left behind with 56k.

Thanks for the help

primesuspect

It sounds like there's not much you can do. People with rural access needs really are very limited in their choices - it sounds like satellite might be one of your only choices.

But you say you can get cable - that's broadband. Usually people in "less" isolated areas only have two choices for broadband anyway - cable or DSL. If you can get cable, what's the problem?

Straight_Man

To be honest, for now, if the install and cable running fees for cable are really gonna eat you alive, I would go with 2-way satellite and have a cheap dialup backup. That is what a fellow out in rural New Mexico does. The reason for the cheap dialup backup is two-fold-- bad thunderstorms can degrade broadband signals passing through them, so can solar storms and flares that can affect transmissions of satellite kind.

OTOH, if you can afford a one-time expense or your TV Cable is very good, I would go with Cable first. Most of the two-way sat folks SELL the transceivers, they do not lease them. Cable folks lease modems routinely so you can be out less especially when the same TV cable can carry broadband and TV signals. So, if they do not want to charge you some outrageous sum by the foot to run a first cable to the house, then I would avoid Satellite. See if they will piggyback the boradband on same cable as far as house, or raise cain about quality of TV signal until they run a better cable for that if you have same, and then have them piggyback the broadband signal on that cable. Essentially, what you have presented is a choice that is determined partly by both TV and broadband quality. If one is better in your area according to lots of folks, and you can afford both, maybe that is because some of those folks tried both, so talk to neighbors on phone and see what and why they made their choice (I know, neighbors are CLOSE BY, well out west in New Mexico neighbors for John (last initial F) were 25+ miles away unless he counted the Pueblo 20 miles away, so neighbors is a relative term).

John D.

reelbigfish

If you get sattilite you have to deal with a Fair Access Policy, which means if you download too much you will get in trouble. You won't be able to play games becuase you only get around 56kbps up and there is a high propagation delay, so your pings will be very high. If you will live there a long time and you can afford it, cable is the way to go.

Zero1

Thanks for the help but the only big problem with cable is the expense and getting a provider, comcast is the only one who will come out to were im at (Road Runner stops a street before me :bawling: ) and there prices are something that my parents dont wanna deal with.

Thanks again and ill keep checking for a good provoider

Camman

reelbigfish wrote:

If you get sattilite you have to deal with a Fair Access Policy, which means if you download too much you will get in trouble. You won't be able to play games becuase you only get around 56kbps up and there is a high propagation delay, so your pings will be very high. If you will live there a long time and you can afford it, cable is the way to go.

Most Cable providers (he mentioned Comcast, and I have Comcast Northeast) also have this same Fair Access Policy because of the shared-access nature of cable connections, so, I wouldn't see this as being a point against Satellite, but, yea satellite is going to have high ping which isn't going to help you since you mentioned a big reason for needing cable was playing online games that require broadband.

reelbigfish

the satillite FAP cannot be compared to Comcast. If you download more than 60megabytes in an hour, your speeds are capped around dial-up speeds. For comcast there are no hourly or daily limits, and the overall limit is 30GB plus.

Camman

oh wow really? I was not aware. That sux

Tex

reelbigfish wrote:

the satillite FAP cannot be compared to Comcast. If you download more than 60megabytes in an hour, your speeds are capped around dial-up speeds. For comcast there are no hourly or daily limits, and the overall limit is 30GB plus.

Comcast?? 30gb for how much time? I download tons of Oracle and OS type iso's a months and have never hit a cap yet? is it 30gb a month? I've done 20gb in the last week easy. Crap I was doing iso's just to time the download speed??? Whats supposed to hapen when you hit their cap?

Tex

reelbigfish

Tex wrote:

Comcast?? 30gb for how much time? I download tons of Oracle and OS type iso's a months and have never hit a cap yet? is it 30gb a month? I've done 20gb in the last week easy. Crap I was doing iso's just to time the download speed??? Whats supposed to hapen when you hit their cap?

Tex

Whoa whoa there Tex. There is no "offcial" cap. People can get away with downloading 100GB if your node is lightly loaded. Thats why I said 30 GB plus. Some people have been booted for as low as 30-50 on heavily loaded nodes. If there are lots of people and they complain about thier slow service, they will watch you and boot the top user(s) off the node simply becuase it is cheaper than upgrading the node to handle the capacity. That is why I hate Comcast and have SBC. My town is small, so there is one node for all of the downtown area. I would've gotten nailed becuase like you, I download lots of ISO's. You have nothing to fear until you get a letter. Then you need to slow down. Which I think it crap and why I dumped Comcast. But if it works for you or is the only thing available or you are a light user, you're all good.

As for sattilite, yeah, it is that bad. I didn't have it, I waited for Comcast and the jumped ship for SBC DSL. I had a friend who had it, and it was horrible. The ping times are long and the FAP is horrendous. Stay away from Sattilite unless abosolutly nessecary. Also, the equiptment for sattilite can be upwards of $500. It might be worth it so throw $1500 at the problem of getting cable laid to your house.

khan

Satellite can barely be compared to broadband, anyways. The "Satellite" portion of your connection is only downstream. Downloads, and etc. For upstream, you still use dialup (If I remember correctly). So the only thing that will change will be your download times, and even then you won't see a big increase. Cable, no matter how expensive, is your best option for broadband (assuming you can't get DSL)

Camman

some use dialup for upload and satellite for downstream, but I believe alot, if not most, satellite connections are 2-way now

Geeky1

Satellite connections are not all download-only, and not all of them are capped. Most of the newer satellite setups are 2-way, and my dad's AOL satellite setup doesn't have any kind of fair access policy or whatever- I've downloaded easily 200MB/hr+ and never had a problem.

reelbigfish

So I guess AOL may not have a FAP. That's good, however, the upload is still very very slow, even with a two way satelitte connection. If you want to play games don't get satelitte. If you just download and surf, AOL without a FAP is for you. Just remember that in the contract they can change your service whenever they want, and if you have a 1 year contract you could be stuck with a FAP.