Cable, You people just don't know how lucky you are to have it!

[japerritt]

I live in a very low populated area in the backwoods of south Georgia! I have contacted my cable service guy and said he doubted that cable would ever be available in my Town, with a laugh at that(I mean this town is Tiny).
Anyone know of any other options I may can get?

[GroundZero3]

no ISDN or DSL?? even know those are slower than cable there alot better than dial-up.

JaYsin

[jl123]

How bout like a satellite Internet service? Look around for one of those.

~Joel

[voogru]

Satilite!
http://www.starband.com

Heres how it works!
GTH Management Team
Gilat-To-Home is led by President and CEO Zur Feldman, formerly executive vice president of operations at Packard Bell Electronics Inc. The senior management of Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. is also actively involved. Jon Devaan, Senior Vice President in the Consumer Group at Microsoft, Yoel Gat, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd., and a representative from EchoStar Communications Corporation will serve on the Gilat-To-Home board of directors

About EchoStar

EchoStar Communications Corporation provides state-of-the-art direct broadcast services through its DISH Network™ business unit, offering over 500 channels of digital video and CD-quality audio programming to over 3.4 million customers. The DISH Network service also offers Dolby Digital surround sound, high-speed interactive television and data services, all on a single dish, as well as offering fully MPEG-2/DVB compliant hardware and installation. Other EchoStar business units design and distribute DBS set-top boxes, antennas and other digital equipment for DISH Network and various international customers, and provide video, audio and data services to business television customers and other satellite users. See EchoStar's Web site at http://www.echostar.com

About Gilat Satellite Networks
Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. is a world leader in satellite-based wide-area communication network technology, with over 200,000 satellite dishes installed throughout the world. Gilat is a publicly held company (NASDAQ: GILTF) and was recently named one of the top 20 small companies in the world by Forbes Global magazine. The company provides satellite-based end-to-end networking and rural telephony solutions to customers across six continents. Gilat's combination of exceptional service, performance and economics have made it the preferred network communication provider for leading U.S. businesses, including the U.S. Postal Service, Hollywood Video, John Deere, American Farm Bureau and TGI Friday's, to name just a few.

HOW IT WORKS
The Gilat-To-Home (GTH) system consists of a 24x36-inch satellite dish mounted on your roof, chimney or on a pole in the yard. The dish must have a clear unobstructed view of the southern sky. Two standard coaxial cables connect the dish to a PC in your home, which is either pre-equipped with Gilat-To-Home transmit/receive cards or connected to an external Gilat-To-Home satellite modem.
<IMG SRC="http://www.geocities.com/voogru/diagram.gif" border=0>

The GTH system both sends requests to the Internet and receives the requested Internet content via a Ku-band satellite in geostationary orbit approximately 22,300 miles above the equator. The satellite, in turn, communicates with GTH's hub facility, which has a direct connection to the Internet.

The result is two-way satellite Internet service that provides high-speed, always-on access on par with other broadband technologies, such as cable modems and DSL. Best of all, no telephone connection is needed, no terrestrial Internet account is required, and the service is available in any location that enjoys a clear view of the satellite.

The GTH satellite dish is also capable of receiving EchoStar's DISH Network™ 500-channel satellite television programming. By taking advantage of this capability, a single antenna can provide two-way satellite Internet service ,as well as receive DISH Network satellite television programming from two EchoStar satellites. Additional information about this combined offering will be provided in the near future on this Web page.

voogru


[This message has been edited by Mntsnow (edited 09-28-2000).]



[This message has been edited by voogru (edited 09-29-2000).]

[NDC]

I know how lucky I am....... It took 10 days to get this dang connection installed!

[Gutter Ball]

Cable's not so good. My service has been up and down since I've had it(since January, I think...it's been reinstalled so many times I can't remember). This last week has been horrible...less than 10k's/sec! I'm seriously thinking about switching to DSL. Sure it's slower, but at least I know I will be doing 100's consistently!

[NDC]

Hmmm, Maybe your cable ISP isn't so good. I get an average of 550~730KB connection. All DSL aren't so fast either, It depends on the quality of the ISP.


[This message has been edited by NDC (edited 09-28-2000).]

[jad1097]

I went from a 14.4 connection to cable. I do know how lucky I am.

As a matter of fact I have been looking at buying some land to build my next house on and choose not to buy two pieces of property because there was no high speed access available.

[Win_98]

Sound like that exactly where I am living, Cable/DSL will never be here. satelite is not an option because it is very expensive and upload is only as good as a 28K. So with all these bill up my ****, I don't see how I can afford 600 bucks a month just for internet access eqivalent to DSL?

[Wilan Wong]

My cable net isn't so good either, a connection capped at 512Kbits, that means a max download speed of about 63 to 64Kb/sec. BTW, does any1's download speed isn't jumpy (like 1kb/sec to 30kb/sec then to 60kb/sec then back to 1??) - i used DU Meter and found out this was happening! How do I solve this?

[UKLee]

I still have 56k at home but here at my Uni campus we have some kind of superfast connection - don't know the speed but it flat out flies compared to 56k

japerrit, I would think that your best option would be to check out the possibility of satellite access - if it is doubtful you'll ever get cable, then I doubt you'll get DSL either.

[RataToo]

I feel for ya, but I must say, now that I have been spoiled by my cable conection....I would move if i were in your shoes...

[brandon184]

I'm spoiled with high speed connections. My dad is having a VDSL line installed in his offices next month (56 mbits/sec.) That'll be the ultimate in speed, and hopefully I'll have access to it.

[NDC]

But it also appears that no matter how fast your cable or xDSL modem is, if the internet server that you are connecting to has poor upstream, that just doesn't make any diference how fast your side is. There have been times where I would connect a certain server and my cable modem would download at 2~3Kb, despite the fact that my cable modem speed is an average of 650~700kb.

[jad1097]

56mb/sec now that is smoking!!! I bet you would like access to it. Just think in another ten years that may be considered slow.


NDC that happens to me also Redhat 7 (4 ISO's) took about 6hrs to download the other day and I had the nerve to be upset about it.

[This message has been edited by jad1097 (edited 09-29-2000).]