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Old 11-26-2014, 01:30 PM   #21
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We've had UVerse (broadband and tv) for quite a few years now and have been very happy with quality, reliability, and service. Still annoyed that the bill creeps up every few months, but that's pretty much the norm.

Time Warner is the other option and we had so many problems with them with TV only back in the day that we'd be hard pressed to ever try them again.
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Old 11-26-2014, 01:33 PM   #22
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Actually there are a couple options beyond DSl and cable that i have considered but not gone with.

One is satellite (Dish, our satellite tv provider offers internet service) and the other is that some of the big cellphone companies are offering internet service via their hi-speed cellular networks. One friend uses the Verizon offering.

I've looked into both and they seem to have slower speeds and similar price so I haven't changed.
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Old 11-26-2014, 01:40 PM   #23
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Even for cellphone I need a high gain 24db directional antenna for useable signal.

On and off I play with high gain antennas to reach any kind wifi, so far nada, zip. I refuse to go the smartphone route.
I have a cellular Yagi too with a local in house repeater. The cell site I'm hitting at is about 12 miles away, as the crow flys. Works pretty well for voice calls but it's not really good enough for high speed data.

Regarding WiFi, back in the days when I kept up with this stuff, I think the worlds record distance for a non amplified 802.11 signal was about 125 miles set at DefCon. But that was 8 or 10 years ago. I haven't checked but I would expect someone has gone further than that by now.
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Old 11-26-2014, 01:52 PM   #24
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My camp is in the mountains. Many are higher than my camp. I can hit only one cell site through wooded valley. Summertime green leaf attenuation along with rain can still wipe out the signal.

On wifi will need to increase transmit power well beyond what normal stuff does. Then with high gain antenna might recover something. Time will tell.
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Old 11-26-2014, 02:04 PM   #25
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I have Comcast Xfinity according to my statement. I don't know the speed but likely not the fastest or the slowest based on my monthly fee (a few pennies less than $59.00/month). I really have no complaints with Comcast. They answer the phone quite promptly and have a nearby office which I have visited when the modem went kaput. They quickly slid a new modem over the counter to me no questions asked. I rent the modem. I have cable TV and a landline phone with them, too.
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Old 11-26-2014, 02:25 PM   #26
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One man's way of saying bye to Hughesnet.

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Old 11-26-2014, 05:23 PM   #27
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At one time we had Crapcast but they were so unreliable and hard to deal with I went back to dialup for a while. At the time I was still teaching online via E-mail and could not be just dropping off for three days at a time.

When Verizon offered DSL I jumped at that and they were pretty good. Later they sold our service area to Frontier Communications and they have also been pretty good to deal with. The only other alternative is dish. We still have Crapcast for TV only because DW wants it.

Crapcast is so bad that they have a special 800# for friends & family of employees. DW's nephew works for them and I was about to cancel service and she called him, he gave us the number and a code. The call was answered promptly, no telephone tree, and the people I talked to were all friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. Service tech was here the next day as promised, when promised.

So they can do it when they really want to. But most of the time they don't want to be bothered.
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Old 11-26-2014, 07:30 PM   #28
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One man's way of saying bye to Hughesnet.

When he grinds it into the dirt...a nice touch!
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Old 11-26-2014, 07:38 PM   #29
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When he grinds it into the dirt...a nice touch!
+1
I loved that move. Let's you know his frustration level!

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Old 11-27-2014, 05:31 AM   #30
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We have Comcast - bundle of TV, internet, phone. We have a few horror stories of our own, mainly about getting the phone to work. It seems that the 800' feed to our house is a challenge for them. But it has been very reliable the past year. I checked into AT&T, but we can't get U-verse in our area.
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Old 11-27-2014, 07:00 AM   #31
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...........................

Reviews and ratings here:
Internet Services

Wow, just looked at the chart and all the providers have between 0 and ~1.25 (out of 5) stars. I guess all the providers are bad, but I did not take the time to read the actual reviews.

Anyway, I have Verizon FIOS where I am renting, and for 10 years where I lived before I moved last summer. Quality of Service is VG (IMO). Customer Service is VG (IMO) Price is on the high side (IMO).
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Old 11-27-2014, 07:09 AM   #32
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Only viable wired service is local ma&pa telco, with high dollar DSL bundled with an expensive landline as part of the deal. There is one wireless provider advertising availability, but I know where their antennas are and topographical obstructions make that impractical. Several cell providers offer back shelf home internet services, and I've run several cost scenarios to see if going all in with a cell phone/home internet package would be viable, perhaps if they one day offer a great deal with mega bandwidth I'd bite, but not at today's prices - and they've been throwing some pretty attractive deals out lately. Wireless, satellite, & cell plans for the most part don’t offer the bandwidth I want and their monthly data caps are too restrictive.

Cheaper alternative nearby is a major cable company, but their service only extends to about a 1/2 mile down the road. They were not interested in extending their infrastructure to our location but I was able to convince them to "allow me" to have internet only service initiated in a willing friend's garage, which was inside their service area. That was the biggest challenge, and would never have happened except for the help of a high level customer relations team. That team was unfortunately disbanded a few months later, but not until after I had my service installed. I set up my own wireless link from the friend's garage to my 37' tower which also supports my OTA TV antenna. I’ve been using that equipment for three years now and am satisfied with the service, although I do lose some bandwidth due to less than optimum LOS on the link route, but it is still faster and cheaper than the telco's service.

So my provider is a hybrid cable and customer provided last mile approach.
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Old 11-30-2014, 03:05 PM   #33
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Not a 'major' supplier, I had Earthlink for dial up for many years and went with their DSL service many years back. I have to rate them pretty good. Occasional random outage. I understand they sub the interface to COVAD.I get 5MPS and the rate was raised from $40 to $45 last month. We have Direct dish TV, pretty happy with that. I ponder Uverse or cable for internet access but will wait until fiber is available before changing from a system that works well enough for us.
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Old 11-30-2014, 04:13 PM   #34
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We live about 60 miles outside Chicago. Unincorporated area and get no high speed anything. Our best is wireless usb stick in a cradlepont router. Problem is data caps on wireless planes.

What happened to high speed access for everyone? Comcast wants 12k just to trench to our house (across stream) just so they can bill us monthly?

Something wrong with this picture.
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Old 11-30-2014, 04:52 PM   #35
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I'm using Hughsnet. No cell at my present location but maybe next year when I move to the top of the hill. Skype has been working pretty good for phone service lately. I couldn't use an IP phone for several months. Hughs' answer was "not our problem". It was their problem and they finally got it fixed. The internet is OK unless you want to do something more demanding than keeping up with the FIRE board. It is also very expensive for what you get, but my only option for communication.
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Old 11-30-2014, 05:47 PM   #36
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I am looking forward to google fiber:
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Old 11-30-2014, 06:08 PM   #37
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We use Comcast with Verizon FIOS as an alternative. Our speed is about 50 Mbps and no real complaints except having to renegotiate the package price every couple of years when the "deal" terms are up.


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