Is your Internet speed and cost good enough?

[Tin Can]

This is not an advert for any Internet provider. I have no pecuniary interest in the companies cited nor any Internet provider.

Last November we, meaning our condo building, became aware of a new to Chicago high speed Internet provider. As President of the Board, I actively pursued them and they us. We just got set up and it is truly a way better price, service and speed.

Not everybody can get this yet and I beleive we need fiber optic to every home, not just NA, but worldwide or perhaps WISP will do. Here is an article from Popular Mechanics that explains this new service.

We did not get service from that company, but a competitor also from SF which has now headquartered in Chicago. https://webpass.net/

This new service has cut my Internet bill by more than 50% and my synchronous speed, meaning both download and upload has increased by more than a factor of 10.


I feel this is pertinent here, as so many on this forum are scanning, printing and sending very large files. This technology makes it all easier and far faster.

Combined with a fast computer, SSD and all the RAM that fits, the Internet is now flowing like we always wanted. For now.

[Kirk Gittings]

Whoa!!! Right now WISPs are a few bucks more than the cost of the big boys here for about the same speeds. Higher speeds cost X$.

[Jac@stafford.net]

18Mbps download here and less than 1Mbps upload. And we were one of the first communities to install a fiber-optic backbone in 1995, and improved it since. Unfortunately, none of us can use it! It serves the perimeter and some big clients such as our hospital, and even at any cost only a small area of town can get 1 Gigabit.

I just zen it out, having lived with speeds of less than 300 baud in the early days.

[Tin Can]

I realize most cannot get this now.

But, The Times They Are A-Changin’

[Willie]

Rural farm area in North Dakota. Dial up connection with upgrading soon to a 'faster' system. Tried satellite but every time it rained, snowed or was cloudy - or just clear skies and you held your mouth wrong - no service. So much for Hughes Net. The phone connection is slow but it works - until the neighbor five miles up the road moves his cows into the wrong field and they rub against the repeater post and knock it out of alignment, open a hole and mice get in and chew the wiring. When it happens the guys come out and fix it but can take a day or two. Mid winter it may take longer as working at 20-30 below in the wind is not fun.

Would welcome both lower cost and faster connection as long as it is reliable.

[Corran]

We have two options here - ridiculously expensive cable internet that has so-so speed or moderately expensive DSL that is about the most abysmal speed imaginably this side of dial-up. Especially upload, where I get about 0.3mbps. Not acceptable. Most times I bring large files I need to upload to work (T1 line).

So, yeah I'm jealous.

[Jody_S]

Until recently I lived in the boonies where I had the choice of dial-up (averaged 24kBPS) or a municipal co-op microwave connection (had to be within eye-sight of a tower) which would average 0.3mBPS, for twice the price, but slow to a trickle during peak usage. Since moving into the city, I have DSL, now getting real 5mBPS for $43+. I have finally discovered Netflix.

I would love to go faster, but I don't know what practical application it would have. We can stream 2 TVs in HR and surf. My work could be done on dial-up. I do hope companies continue installing infrastructure for fiber optic, once there are sufficient customers we may see the next jump in web-based services. But for where we're at now, I'm ok with 5mBPS.

[jon.oman]

I considered myself spoiled using Comcast. I currently get 30 mbps download and 6 mbps upload. But speeds like you (Randy) report? Wow! I wish that would come to the Charleston area!

[koh303]

When i was young, and DSL was new, and experimental, i was chosen to be part of a regional test group who got the service. I think there were only 6000 housholds in that test group. Back then, seeing anything above 50K download speeds was a miracle, unless you you worked for hiteck and had a T1 line in your office, or you had a direct feed dish, but i was seeing things like 1.1mb (and equally then insane upload speeds). This made napster so much more fun (perhaps this puts the date into perspective), and all kinds of other things possible that were not possible before.

With that said - once the system went public, this all went away. Peak hours became noticeable, and the dream became the same old crap it was before.

I have no doubt that this new system is great now, when the user count is LOW, time will tell if it survives the masses. In any cases it is not available to single family houses (perhaps "yet").

For some reason, despite being a world power, the US has some of the worst internet service, and at one of the worlds highest rates, mostly due to the monopolized market, changing that rather then the tech might make the internet faster and more accessible.

[Winger]

We've had cable DSL for a long time and then moved to Iowa for a couple of years and the choices there were dial-up or HughesNet. Dial-up would likely have been faster and more reliable. I will NEVER use HughesNet again. Even if they pay me. So right now, cable seems fine. We have a smallish localish company (Armstrong).