This topic contains 36 replies, has 13 voices, and was last updated by 
-
Posts
-
My 3 year dial-up contract is almost complete (finally), and I’m looking into some broadband options.
I’m looking for high speed internet that will:
- Give me multiple screen names (I need at least 5).
- Will still provide dialup service so I can use my laptop from locations other than my residence.
- Give me some web space to host my personal web pages.
I am considering SBC DSL service, although I don’t know if they meet my requirements.
Does anyone have any advise, suggestions, or preferences that they can share?
Even though I run an ISP, you may still find answers contrary to what I’m posting…
1) There is no such thing as a ‘screen name’ on a true Internet connection, dialup or otherwise. Only services like AOL, MSN, Prodigy etc. that act as front ends to the Internet have screen names. When truely connected directly to the Internet, you have no identity. You do however have email addresses.
I’ve yet to see an ISP that didn’t provide at least one email address of your choice (the part to the left of the ‘@’ sign), and many provide more than one. Some have a nominal charge for additional addresses. Check with the providers you are looking at as to how many they provide for the basic price, and how much additional are.
There is no difference in pricing and quantity of email addresses between dialup, DSL, and cable. There are only differences between providers; not between dialup and broadband.
2) Wow, including a dialup account for traveling along with your broadband access. Never seen that combination. You would be limited to looking at nationwide providers I would think so they might have access numbers across the country. I would imagine that they would probably charge extra for this, probably actually selling you a dialup account along with your broadband. Note again though that since there are no identities actually tied to true Internet access, even if you had two accounts (dialup and broadband) they would work seamlessly together; no one would be able to tell which connection you were using at any given time.
3) Any respectable ISP will include personal webspace for your use at no additional cost.
Just a note: There are some basic differences between cable and DSL. DSL is a dedicated connection that goes from your home to your local telephone company central office, and from there onto the ISP’s network. Cable however uses the shared cable that serves you, your neighbors, and your surrounding community. This means two things: your available bandwidth ‘can’ be effected by your neighbors with cable access, but not on DLS. And there are some security risks to cable due to others sharing the line that you won’t see with DSL.
DSL has its own problems related to cost. Bandwidth is very expensive to an ISP. To make money, they want to cram as many customers as they can onto the bandwidth they have. DSL, because it uses so much of that precious bandwidth, is a hard sell at the prices it actually costs the ISP. So, to make up for it, the ‘norm’ for residential DSL is to over subscribe it back on the ISP’s network. While you will have 100% of the DSL line’s bandwidth dedicated to you, you will typically find that back at the ISP its been oversubscribed by 50:1 to 100:1. That’s the only way they can afford to sell it around the $50 mark. So ask the ISP (and cable company for that matter) what the guarenteed bandwidth (up and down) are, and get it in writting.
To give you a comparrison, at my company we only sell commercial (business) DSL that is NOT oversubscribed. 256kb of bandwidth costs $256/month. A residential customer would swear at us for that price and accuse us of price gouging (and they do), but its because we don’t over subscribe the line and sell it at what it costs us (and a very nominal markup). Businesses recognize this and pay; the motto is that ‘good bandwidth costs’.
Hope this helps!
Right off the bat, I’ll mention that I work for SBC, so I am biased
Anyhow, I’ve been using DSL for a couple years now, and love it. Early on there were some problems, but the kinks seem to be worked out.
My SBC Yahoo DSL has up to 10 separate e-mail accounts (1 with 25 megs of mail storage, the others with 10 megs each). As far as screen names, it allows configuration for up to 10 users (email accounts and seperate logins that configure your start page and stuff like that). Web page storage: 15 megs (and I think each screen name gets an additional chunk of web storage).
And yes, my DSL account comes with free dial-up access so I can use it away from home. If you go with SBC, you might want to make sure that there is a local dial-up number where you would want to dial in from when you aren’t at your actual DSL connection at home. We have pretty good coverage, but I noticed that when I visit my parents up in Manitowoc, I have no local number to dial into.
Alan mentioned asking about guaranteed speed. You’ll notice that broadband (cable and DSL) providers like to advertise in terms of “speeds UP TO….” They generally don’t guarantee anything, partialy because of the reasons Alan mentioned. Actually, with DSL the main reason they are so vague when talking about speed is simply because of the many variables on the line itself such as distance to central office or light-span, line configuration, etc. It is hard to tell exactly what speed a customer will get on their line until they are hooked up, in other words. I check my DSL speed often, and I transfer a very reliable 625 to 632 Kbps (downstream). The advertised “up to” speed is 768 (Actually, they offer 1.5 Mbps now). From my experience with DSL, a bottleneck at the ISP is rarely a problem. The limitations of the line are usually the factor that caps the speed. I’m not sure, but after talking with many Cable internet users, I think the opposite happens with cable. The max speed on a cable line is much higher than DSL, but they often complain about speed dropping WAY down at certain times of the day. Some seem to have that problem, some don’t.
Hope this helps some. I’d be happy to answer any other questions you might have about DSL, but I don’t know too much about cable
Well, to muddy up the waters a bit, I’ve got Road Runner cable and it has been fantastic. I love doing the bandwidth speed tests. Just did Bandwidth Place at 2.2 megabits per second. One other one at 1.9 and a third, hmm, only 954 Kbps. Well, that one was to Los Angeles.
I almost bit for the phone companies offer but found that the price shot up to more than RR after the special offer period and the guarantee was pretty pokey. I believe that RR has dial up but I use the 800 number for our company server and make big use of my Hotmail address. Only trouble is that from most hotel rooms I might only get a 14,400Bps connection. Oh, the pain!
I just thought I’d throw my 2 cents in here
Concerning the dialup access in addition.. Can you get an 800# that has a PIN that would be billed to you? We’re doing this with our ISP in Madison, where if a customer wants dailup, and to have an 800# on it, we’ll put it on there and charge per minute. Our rates are extreamly competitive, something around 6 cents a minute. (We’re still fine tuning the plans)
With the slow connections from hotel rooms… You’re probably not going to get away from this. We have a client that has this issue, and it causes their VPN to be extreamly slow. I tested it out at a hotel this weekend and had the same results. From what I can tell, the computer that “audit’s” the phone calls from a hotel room to add charges to the guests bill intercepts calls, then re-routes them through possibly a serial connection to a device that actually allows the call to dial out. That serial connection most likely will be a 19.2kbps line, although I have seen some hotels work smoothly. I think it depends on how much they want to fork out for good equipment.
(Note, I just begain the research on the hotel issue so I don’t have the terminology quite yet. So this is just the basics from a conversation with a tech.)
Hmm, in retrospect this post probably isn’t that helpful. Hehe Sorry
Nick
of The CacheseekersI’ve got RoadRunner. It gives you eight email addresses for free, there’s a 1-800 number you can use for dialup for a limited number of minutes per month, and you get space for a website, though I don’t recall how much space you get.
I’ve been very happy with it. The only time I’ve really lost service is when the crew building the house behind me cut through the line.
I can’t get DSL where I am, because I live in a relatively new subdivision which is all fibre-optic, and, so I’m told, the DSL signal only travels over copper lines.
[This message has been edited by Cheesehead Dave (edited 02-05-2003).]
Wow, great responses everyone!
All that info has me thinking of a few more questions. Since I use my laptop at work and cabin very often, it’s very important to have dial-up service as well.
ISP guy (Alan): I see that SBC DSL advertises downstream speed of 384-768 Kbps and upstream speeds of 128 Kbps. I was curious why the upload is slower then the download?
Phone guy (Joe): Through your Dialup service, can you see if there is a local number near Minocqua, WI, in the (715) area code. Does SBC provide a (800) number to dial to if there is no local number? (My Compuserve has an 800 number and charges me .10 cents/min to dial into it.)
Cable Guy (Steve): Does Roadrunner let you have multiple screen names accounts? Do you know if they give you dial up access? Your test results are pretty impressive, much faster then the DSL advertised speeds.
I think Cheesehead Dave answered my cable questions. I was mid-post when he responded
[This message has been edited by GrouseTales (edited 02-05-2003).]
I also have RoadRunner. However, to meet your requirements I would pick AOL Broadband. They allow the quantity of email’s you want and each email gets WEB space. These WEB spaces can be linked together if you run out of room on any one of them. There is also the Nationwide Dialup capability. They give you x hours per mounth for dialup.
Joatmon
I think I can answer the question about upstream vs. downstream speeds.
I general, with high-speed connections, unless you’re paying for a business account, you’re generally not allowed to use your computer as a server, and therefore, you really don’t need a fast upstream connection, especially since HTTP requests don’t need much bandwidth.
By throttling the upstream bandwidth, you’ll get more downstream bandwidth, which is where you want the most speed for downloading web pages, movies, *ahem* MP3s, etc.
I knew someone who had internet over satellite. A regular moden was used to send out requests, and the incoming data came in at high speed over the dish. The speed was just fine for that, so it’s really only the downstream speed that’s important.
Brian,
The access numbers I found for the 715 area code are:
Marshfield WI (715)502-4012 56K V90
Menomonie WI (715)953-4774 56K V90
Menomonie WI (715)233-5305 56K V90
Merrill WI (715)804-4774 56K V90I don’t know if these would be local to Minaqua. There is also a “premium access feature” that give 800 number access at 10 cents a minute, but I don’t think it is available to everyone.
[This message has been edited by Thraxman (edited 02-05-2003).]
Cheesehead Dave is exactly right. DSL is often referred to as xDSL, where the ‘x’ can refer to many different letters depending on the type of DSL. Most residential DSL replaces the ‘x’ with ‘A’, for ADSL, meaning ‘Asymetrical DSL’ as the up and down speeds are different. Most residential folks want to GET things (files, web pages etc.) fast, not send them fast. The only folks that want to SEND things fast are those running servers, and that’s exactly what residential DSL providers want to prohibit. Again, as a comparison, the business DSL I sell replaces the ‘x’ with ‘S’ for SDSL, or ‘Symetrical DSL’ because our customers are almost always SENDing data to their customers from their servers.
Just a comment on the satellite services. There are two types; one way and two way. In one way, only your received data comes over the satellite, and its just a typical self instalable Dish Network type system. All the data you send out (your web requests, sent email, etc.) goes out your modem and phone line to a (hopefully) local ISP.
Two way satellite on the other hand uses the satellite for both up and down transmissions, no land lines are needed at all. These are great for rural areas. But note: as the dish is used to transmit data, it MUST be professionally installed by an FCC liscensed earth station installer, which is expensive, and you are not allowed to move it yourself.
One other satellite issue: due to the tremendous distance your signal has to go just to get from your location, to the satellite, and back to earth before it even begins to travel the normal Internet routes, you get some significant lag. While not typically noticible for most Internet applications, there are some (like online games, video conferencing, voice over IP) that will simply stink with that kind of latency.
Hope it helps!
Wow, what service! I can post a few questions and get them answered faster then the SBC operator could. Of course the SBC lady could have been faster if she didn’t offer to switch me over after every question
Joe, thanks for the numbers. I will try calling the Merrill number this weekend to see if it’s long distance or not.
Thanks everyone!
quote:
Originally posted by CacheCows:
Cheesehead Dave is exactly right. DSL is often referred to as xDSL, where the ‘x’ can refer to many different letters depending on the type of DSL. Most residential DSL replaces the ‘x’ with ‘A’, for ADSL, meaning ‘Asymetrical DSL’
Don’t forget your QDSL… hehe. This was a big joke at work that I started about 8 months ago. See, there’s this guy I work who I will call “James” (Aw, heck, that IS his real name), who is one of those techie types who likes to have the “one up” on everybody. We were both early subscribers to DSL. One morning, on a whim, I said “Hey James, did they send you your QDSL kit yet?” He said “QDSL, what’s that???” I responded “QUICL DSL. A new product we are rolling out in the near future. 7.5Mbps. They called me and asked if I would be interested in Beta Testing it.” I played this out well enough that he became rather miffed that he wasn’t in on the “Beta Test” (which of course didn’t exist, I was making this all up).
Anyhow, to make a long story short, over a period of about 4 days, he called every department in the company trying to get in on the test, making a total fool of himself, I would suppose
The icing on the cake was that he figured out I was messing with him. BUT, coincidentally, we actually did recently roll out 4.0Mbps dsl for residential customers. Now he actually believes I WASN’T giving him a line… hehe
Nothing beats a good old 14.4k modem dial up I always say! Smokes my old 2400 modem all to heck!
You young whippersnappers! Why, when I was your age we had to hand carry each bit from our house to the Internet by hand, through 37″ of snow, in our bear feet, and were happy to do so, huh!
The forum ‘Old General Forum (Busted)’ is closed to new topics and replies.