Do all ISP services come through the phone lines?

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Emibub

Emibub

PFG, Picture Framing God
Joined
Nov 2, 2001
Posts
9,246
Loc
Centennial, CO, USA
I am having trouble with my internet service. There is sonething wrong with my phone lines and they can't find it. They have checked all jacks and can't locate the problem. They will literally have to go thru the whole house checking all the wires to see if maybe a mouse chewed thru. I am not wanting to do this.

I haven't had a landline in 4 years. Now my DSL box is fried and I need to call them and locate the trouble there. I don't enjoy these exchanges to India and I don't have 4 hours of my life to give up to do so.

Are there any other options to get wireless internet? Satellite maybe?

Thanks for any help!
 
Cable is used in most major cities and a large amount of the rest of the country. Check with your cable provider.
 
make bloody sure you (or you 'friendly' neighborhood lawyer) check out the verbage(and what it ACTUALLY says) of the contract----point of order" verizons fios service(all those wonderful glass fiber lines) is tiered by 'speed'---50/50(50mps up and 50mps down), 25/20(25mps up and 25mps down)----the FINE PRINT on that is "up TO 25/25" ===>
which, for them, is no sweat at all as their line actually run somewhere in the 2.86-4.18 down and 1.6-1.8 up ranges!!! these lines 'can' run UP to 25mps, but they actually only run at these pathetically low speeds('cause their equipment is old garbage ???)

You see, they 'wow' you with the MAXIMUM amounts(geez---50mps!!!! great!!!) the lines will run---not the min/actual amounts they do run at.
it's "legal"(so the local 'fraud squad' says) but well within their advertized ranges so it's pretty much a 'legal' bait & switch situation---like, I have a car that will 'only' go 140MPH!!!!!!!!! & the fact that it will really ONLY do 20mph(downhill with a following wind) has nothing to do with the situation, yes?

so watch out for what they ACTUALLY say, not what you think they say.
 
Kathy, no, not all ISPs go through phone lines. Cable goes through cable lines and satelite goes through the air :) Wifi for your iPhone is either wifi hot spots or uses the G3 network for cell phones.
You can get an aircard, or cell card for your computer or laptop and bypass cable, dsl and satelite internet. But I think you get a limited number of mb or gigs per month. A neighbor uses a verizon ard at home becauise they can't get cable or satelite. They're happy with the verizon card, not extatic, but happy. Basically means no you tube for the kids :)



If you aren't using but the one line that the DSL modem is connected to I would suggest getting someone in to run a line from the phone company's NIC outside your house to the one jack you are using. and disconnect the others.
 
Emibub said:
...I haven't had a landline in 4 years. Now my DSL box is fried and I need to call them and locate the trouble there. I don't enjoy these exchanges to India and I don't have 4 hours of my life to give up to do so...
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You're going to have to talk to them anyway. Even if it is just to terminate service or you will continue to be billed. The DSL box is usually maintained at their expense. Try getting it fixed before you chase off in a different direction.
 
I have FiOS at work and cable at home, but am by no means an expert in telecom like Mike Labbe is.

But, I believe that DSL is essentially a land line. If you were happy with the speed and reliability you may wish to bite the bullet and have it fixed.

I assume that you have a cell phone. It would seem to me that if you had very reliable service everywhere in your house (without it ever breaking up or dropping your calls), wireless would be an option. You would have to check on the speed of the service (3G, 4G?), however, for it to be a viable alternative … but, again, I'm no expert.

But, if you have access to FiOS, I'd say go for it. It beats DSL and cable by a mile.
 
Analog Dialup and DSL use the 100+ year old old copper network, which is being slowly phased out. These are usually the least reliable methods.

DSL is usually put on the same line as a dial tone/phone line, but at a higher frequency. They put a filter on the telephone lines, so you don't hear the hiss of data. They can do it without a dial tone, but usually charge more. (and it's more likely to get cut or re-used by a technician)

Digital Cable and Digital FIOS come in via cable or fiber optic lines, which can also carry voice calls and television. These are the newer and faster alternatives.

Wireless is big too, and cellular companies are scrambling to add "4G" LTE towers. Verizon is the first and has had many test cities up since last year. (It's not available to the public yet, but will be this year as new LTE capable equipment is announced) AT&T will be adding LTE, in about 3 more years. LTE is capable of 100 Mbps, but they'll probably roll it out initially at about 25. (and nickle and dime us for more) The current "3G" networks get from 1-7 Mbps, on a good day :) The newer technology uses some of the analog television bandwidth, which was released last year. These frequencies are great for long term transmission, penetrating buildings, etc.

We have been using Cox Communications (cable) here for about 15-17 years. We pay for 25 Mbit down/7 Mbit up speed, but are getting 64/7 speed currently. (per the test at http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ ) It looks like they're testing a new upgrade, which has yet to be announced. :)

FIOS is often a bit faster than Cable, and they usually price it about $5 less. Our local FIOS provider (Verizon) has major billing issues, so if you go with this company you should double check the statements to make sure are giving you what was promised. A LOT of people are complaining, and have been for years.

There are other methods in some cities, too, such as wireless, leased data lines, satellite, microwave, etc.

Happy shopping!

Mike
 
Emibub said:
Are there any other options to get wireless internet? Satellite maybe?
Click to expand...

Use Satellite only if you are desperate. I built a new house in '97 that didn't have cable or DSL available yet so I installed satellite. It's better than dial-up but not much. In fact, in some cases in can be slower than dial-up.

I finally got cable in '99 and discarded the satellite real quick. My experiences are a decade old but I don't think that satellite has improved much since then.

When you load a web page, the page is loaded in a series of transactions with the server. The entire web page doesn't load at once. Each image, for example, is a separate transaction with the server. Each transaction requires a separate round trip to the server and back to retrieve the information or image in the transaction. For cable, this round trip time is trivial, usually under 50 ms or less. For satellite, this can be as long as a second. I remember timing the loading of a number of site. CNN took about 45 seconds to load on average. The more graphics, the longer it takes to load. If there are 50 images on a page and the average load time is 1 second, it will take 50 seconds for them all to load. To me it was unacceptable.

Then there is the FAP (Fair Access Policy). Satellites, by their nature, are a scarcer resource than cable or DSL with only so much bandwidth available to satisfy all customers so the satellite companies limit the amount of data that you can download. For the most popular provider, Hughes, it was, and still is, 200MB per day for their base rate. You can chew up 200MB real quick now a days. Forget about gaming or steaming anything. When you reach the limit, you can still access sites, but your throughput is slowed down to a crawl. Google "satellite fair access policy limits" for more on this.

If you are not a power user, don't download much data or upgrade much online, can live with slow page loads, and can pay more than cable or DSL (yes, it costs more too) then maybe you can survive with satellite. Otherwise don't consider it.
 
Larry I use a dish. Granted it has only been for a few months, but it has been OK. They "give" me 7 gig a month. Pretty minor amount! But we haven't come close to that yet.

Of course there is no on-line gaming as there is a delay between basically aiming and shooting. Should you try to play on line you would be the one that moves in slow motion and looks like they are responding to something that happened a minute before, because, you are. :)

Being in the Denver area you have options that are better than satelite, even down to stealing your neighbor's wifi :) Out in the boonies I don't have those options....
 
Wow, lots of good advice here. Thanks guys!!!!!! Not sure what to do. I'm with Comcast cable, so, I will start there. Pat is probably right, I shouldn't burn the bridge kwite yet. At least I see there are options to explore first.

I can't tell you guys how annoyed I am with Qwest and their tech help from India. Every time I have had to involve them it has been anywhere from an hour to 4 hour event. Generally without much satisfaction.
 
Bob Doyle said:
Being in the Denver area you have options that are better than satelite, even down to stealing your neighbor's wifi :) Out in the boonies I don't have those options....
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To be honest Bob, I have been stealing wifi for months now. Although, interestingly enough I am paying my monthly bill to Qwest so maybe not exactly stealing. I continue to pay my bill on a broken service because I had to live out my 2 year contract. The contract has expired. Horning in on others service has gotten harder and very iffy. Sometimes, none is available to use. I can get internet on my cell but it is not very good. I just have dreaded dealing with it so much it is ridiculous.
 
kathy in another thread you asked about surfing the web with a laptop. That's easy, a notebook is a smaller laptop, suually, but a NetBook is another animal altogether. Don't go there. I did, but I use it as a wireless printer server. Puts my printer next to my workstation. There were cheaper options, but I had hoped to use the netbook as a replacement for a 2001 vintage desktop at home. I found it faster to use the older computer at home for surfing that using the netbook.

yep a pentium 4 200 with 512 Meg of ram "feels' faster than a netbook.
 
Bob, I bought my mom a $269 HP netbook and it is as fast as any other computer we surf the net with. The only downside to it is it is small but that is it's purpose. She travels about 5 months out of the year so she can even slip it into her purse.
 
Larry Peterson said:
Use Satellite only if you are desperate. I built a new house in '97 that didn't have cable or DSL available yet so I installed satellite. It's better than dial-up but not much. In fact, in some cases in can be slower than dial-up.
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It hasn't changed much at all. My MIL lives in the boonies and satellite is her only option and it stinks. I'd avoid it like the plague and go with cable or have the DSL fixed.

------------------------
Bob, I replaced my old HP behemoth of a laptop (desktop replacement, really--it was 9 frakkin lbs.) with a Toshiba netbook and I LOVE IT. Removed all the bloatware, added some memory, and got a bigger hard drive and it works great. It's my primary computer now. Plus, Toshiba's have the best battery life--this one will last me a full 8 hours without it going on standby mode.
 
So, I called Comcast..................I'm currently paying $124 a month for cable. I've been planning on reducing that bill. They can give me a bundle with digital cable my same package, internet and digital phone for $114 a month for 1 year. It goes to $150 after that. I don't want the phone but they only bundle the 3. That saves me $50 a month since I pay $40 for the currently useless DSL. I can save even more money if I switch to satellite TV. Comcast is so expensive but I love the On Demand TV. I'm gonna sit on it a couple weeks before I decide.

Can't believe I watch Comcast commercials everyday and it never occurred to me that they had internet. Duh! Had to come to you guys to get a clue. Thanks!
 
Emibub said:
Comcast is so expensive but I love the On Demand TV. I'm gonna sit on it a couple weeks before I decide.
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Satellite (at least, Dish Network) has some movies available "on demand" too.
 
Yeah, David, Direct TV does too. Except, Comcasts On Demand has most current series I can watch whenever. HBO series I can watch when I want. Even the old ones. If I ever catch when they start Sopranos I can finally watch that. Lots of free On Demand movies too. I pay way too much for it. I'd probably be better off going with satellite and a DVR. I've seen those for 50 bucks or so.
 
If you already have Comcast cable, you might want to contact them to see if they will sign you up for “Triple Play”, or whatever they are calling it these days. At home we were paying something like $80 for straight cable with a separate DSL phone line for internet and long distance.

With a two year "Triple Play" contract, they were willing to cancel the single service cable contract and we were able to bundle TV cable, Internet and unlimited phone for $99.00 – a whole lot less than if we bought each additional service individually.

Most of the Comcast service people are mindless gnomes, but if you make several calls (especially to the central 800 number rather than your local office) you should be able to find someone who will sign you up and save you a bundle of cash.
 
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