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System Problems — Why Now?
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System Problems

by Bryan

My DSL modem is on its last legs, and until I can get a replacement I won’t be around much, if at all.

Oh, yes, CenturyLink really sucks, but that won’t be my problem much longer. Satellite here I come.

5 comments

1 Badtux { 06.20.11 at 9:24 pm }

If you think CenturyLink sucks, wait till ya get the full satellite experience, complete with latency times somewhere between snooze and coma, rate limiting that kicks in whenever they feel like it, random signal drops whenever a cloud comes by… the works. It’s the DSL experience on crack!

— Badtux the Used-it Penguin

2 Bryan { 06.20.11 at 9:39 pm }

Yeah, but I won’t be paying $100/month for the service because of a required landline telephone that I never use.

I am well aware of the problems of satellite communications and their limitations, but that is the only option left in South Fundistan.

3 Kryten42 { 06.21.11 at 9:51 am }

Hmmm! I wish you all the best Bryan (seriously). I hope it all works out well.

I suspect that Sat links work better in the USA than they do here, here they suck *HUGE*! My housemates daughter’s farm have to use Sat (they have no choice, other than paying for about 20km of fiber cable), and they have nothing but problems. Most to do with it suddenly slowing to a crawl, or not working at all (I suspect from tests I’ve done that the provider has way over-subscribed the sat link and it maxes out easily). They pay $45/mth for 15GB/mth on Sat! Crooks know they have no choice. *shrug*

Can you get naked DSL there? Best thing I ever did! 😀 No $30/mth line rental fee for a phone I rarely used! We have VoIP, with is much cheaper (free actually, for the first year. And I can call the USA for about 6c/min, and if I call someone on the SIPPSTAR (or some other SIP networks), it’s free. We get 60 free *local* (NAtional) call’s/mth). 🙂

I could send you an ADSL modem, I have a couple spare. But it would probably be cheaper to get one there than pay the shipping! 😉

Anyway, best of luck! 🙂

4 Badtux { 06.21.11 at 7:16 pm }

Kryten, the problem is that he lives in Redneckistan. Here in Californistan we can get a naked DSL line for $19.95/month (for the slowest speed), but in Redneckistan, due to regulatory capture, you don’t have that option — you get a phone line, *then* you configure DSL on top of it as an add-on.

But anyhow, my experience with satellite Internet mirrors yours. The establishment I was using it at has the same problem you mention — is 20km from the nearest utilities — and survives via using diesel generator for their power, a single CDMA voice line bounced off a nearby mountain side to a tower that’s not line of sight (i.e., they have a directional antenna and literally bounce it off a mountain!), and satellite for their Internet. And the satellite Internet connection is just as finicky, oversubscribed, and iffy as what you describe.

5 Bryan { 06.21.11 at 9:24 pm }

Well, I just pulled the modem out of the freezer so it should work for a while.

I’m text based, which is one of the reasons I don’t embed videos. I consider them a distraction, as well as slowing load times for visitors. If you are into games, multimedia, or video satellites won’t work for you. the latency would kill you in gaming, things would break up in multimedia, and videos would come in fits and starts.

The local cable company is over-subscribed and still using coax. They also hang their wire on utility poles, which means that they are out for weeks after a hurricane.

The telephone company has the advantage of buried cable, so, barring Bubba and the runaway backhoe, they stay up. The problem is after the single leaves the central station, as they too are still on copper.

I’m sitting in a block that has fiber on all four sides, and the military are the only ones using it. The phone company installed it, but they won’t sell you access.

Time-Warner use to own the cable company, and they began replacing the copper with fiber. There was a deal made between Cox and T-W that involved swapping systems, so Cox is now the cable company. One of the first things they did after taking over was to replace all of the fiber that T-W had laid with coax.

The state of Florida has fiber laid in the right-of-way for Interstate 10 from Pensacola to Jacksonville, and to the best of my knowledge, nothing is being done with it in West Florida.

My bottom line is I would rather pay $50 for a crummy ‘Net connection, than $100+.

Oh, I have a new modem, but I’m waiting for CenturyLink to get back to me on the settings. Their support site is down, and their ‘Chat’ feature only works with IE 6 or 7.