Wireless ISP speed improvements

[Rick Bergeron - CPF]

Up until yesterday, our typical burst speeds were in the 2-3Mb range. After a dish/radio change, we're now seeing burst speeds of 8-9Mb before the speedcop throttles the speed back to the sustained speed for which we are paying.

Our ISP has recently introduced VOIP but none of the tests that I've run will pass so I'm not too certain about making that jump. So far, bluetoothing our Verizon cellphones into our existing home telephone system is working nicely.

Living in a rural area has its challenges for high speed internet. Satellite is not as good as the ads will have you believe. We've been using a local Wireless ISP for 3-4 years now with good results and most areas have local ISPs who specialize in the Motorola Canopy system.

It's worth a check in the area for this type of system before going to satellite or just settling for dialup.

Dish is pointed at a mountaintop about about 8 miles away.

 

[Mike Labbe]

4G Cellular is huge right now, too. There are more options than ever, for rural areas.

Clear communications is selling Sprint 4G for $25 (with limits) and up (unlimited) per month.

Verizon has their new 4g LTE network (which uses the old analog tv frequencies that have a very good range), and will be announcing new plans soon. I think they're selling LTE at 10-12MB now, but it can do just over 100MB in theory. (when they open it up)

Or if you have a Verizon smartphone (android) with 3g, you can run an app called PDAnet. This lets you feed the unlimited internet from the phone to a laptop or PC. That works for iPhones on AT&T as well, but you have to root (jailbreak) the phone because Apple has it locked down.

Most other carriers have something to offer, for their 3g networks.

There are a bunch of options out there now.

Cable and FIOS are fighting it out here, to capture the local market. Our cox cable residential tests at crazy speeds these days, which make no sense. (we're paying for 30) I don't know why it's that fast, but I'm not complaining! It's possible that is just a speed boost at the start of each file, or something. http://www.speedtest.net/result/1038451181.png

Mike

 

[Rick Bergeron - CPF]

It's just the price we pay to live in a rural area. VerizonWireless data around here is 1.5Mb (burst) on a good day.

Last week while in Houston, my brother's Verizon MiFi2200 provided just over a Mb. East coast have all the latest and greatest improvements.

BTW: Verizon Wireless has a 'mission critical' issue with Backup Assistant since Nov 1 and no date for resolution.... You may have issues restoring your contact list to a new phone (like me), which sux. Mission critical is the same priority as a major tower outage but Verizon can't control its vendors and when/how the vendor makes repairs.... I don't buy that story but that's the only story available.

 

[David Waldmann]

...This lets you feed the unlimited internet from the phone to a laptop or PC. That works for iPhones on AT&T as well, but you have to root (jailbreak) the phone because Apple has it locked down.

Actually, AT&T is now offering (as an extra cost option) tethering for the iPhone. I don't know from personal experience that it is a supported application but I can't imagine they are jailbreaking your phone to do it.