Internet Service?

[OldSaw]

I'm looking for a new internet service. I currently have TW Roadrunner, but the cost is kind of steep. I'm looking for suggestions on a better internet service, perhaps a satellite service that I could share with a few neighbors? I do not have a hardwired phone service, so DSL is probably out.

 

[StillShaving]

Can you get DSL at your location? That may be your next best option to TW. Regardless, its all about your location and what your local service providers offer, whether you have U-verse or anything else. You might have some good 4G/Wimax offering but I doubt it. I don't think you will find a good satellite service, my expectation is that the the bandwidth would be slow and the service expensive.

 

[DC_MPA]

You won't be able to share from a satellite Internet service. It's like satellite tv, one dish per household. One big drawback to satellite Internet is that they have periods in a 24 hour day where you can get top speed service and then periods where the service is slowed due to peak users. It also isn't unlimited but unfortunately no service is keeping unlimited plans. Even AT&T eliminated unlimited dsl service.

 

[Slash McCoy]

What are your speed and bandwidth needs?

I use my iphone on t-mobile. I can tether so I have internet on my puter as well as the phone. Unlimited talk, text, and data for $50/month and no annual contract. It would suck for streaming or big downloads but I can web surf, get my email, and occasionally download an app or a movie with no problem. If you are a power user then this won't work for you.

 

[smalltank]

My thoughts...

ATT....I have 6mbps $25 a month..wifi included..service techs are always in my area

TW CABLE....pricey..can be very fast if you live close to an tower..service wait time takes too long to be scheduled

VERIZON...not too bad of price..VERY limited coverage...uses inside home wiring instead of connecting to towers..more efficient IMO

 

[OldSaw]

Thanks for the input guys.

I am in a phone service area, but I do not have a home phone hooked up, so DSL may be an option.

I have unlimited data on my iPhone through Verizon/Alltell, BUT tethering is not permitted. I don't believe Verizon has home service in my area as I have been unable to contact anyone at Verizon that can give me any information on this.

Maybe I'm stuck with cable.

 

[OldSaw]

What are your speed and bandwidth needs?

I use my iphone on t-mobile. I can tether so I have internet on my puter as well as the phone. Unlimited talk, text, and data for $50/month and no annual contract. It would suck for streaming or big downloads but I can web surf, get my email, and occasionally download an app or a movie with no problem. If you are a power user then this won't work for you.

Where do you download movies from? I used to have a Netflix account, which streams AFIK, and I need a very fast download speed (which my cable should have?) if I re-open my account. If I could download the whole movie and then watch it, I think that would be more preferable.

 

[ouch]

Fios.

 

[Haggises]

Comcast (I may be biased, and also contractually obligated to blurt out Comcast whenever someone else says Fios. )

 

[infotech]

If your part of the country is anything like ours, you either get Time Warner, Comcast, or one phone provider for DSL. We used to have TWC Roadrunner and I loved it. Then Comcast and TWC swapped areas and I have Comcast. I used call TWC, threaten to leave, and they'd lower my rate for 6 months to a year.. Once the price shot back up, I'd call them and do the same thing. Comcast doesn't play around like that.

I stay away from DSL. Unless you're pretty close to your CO then your speed is going to be pretty slow, nowhere near what you're used to with cable. Like others have said, if you can get fiber that is the way to go, but it isn't going to be cheaper than cable internet.

 

[Slash McCoy]

Thanks for the input guys.

I am in a phone service area, but I do not have a home phone hooked up, so DSL may be an option.

I have unlimited data on my iPhone through Verizon/Alltell, BUT tethering is not permitted. I don't believe Verizon has home service in my area as I have been unable to contact anyone at Verizon that can give me any information on this.

Maybe I'm stuck with cable.

There is an app called TetherMe that will tether without your carrier knowing from the packet headers that you are doing so. MiWi and others will not do that, The other apps will let you tether but it is pretty transparent on the carrier end from the packet headers and I am sure they are autodetecting suspicious headers. However, your usage pattern and content might tip them off even when using TetherMe, though they won't have certain evidence. But just that almost certain suspicion might be enough for them to TOS you. FWIW TetherMe is a paid app and will only install on a jailbroken phone. It is available on the BigBoss repo for $4.99 I think so you can easily download, buy, and install through Cydia. To use this successfully and indefinitely, your internet traffic should closely resemble a heavy iphone data user. You don't normally download from usenet or peer to peer networks like bit torrent on an iphone. Basically if you can't do it on your iphone and it will clue off your carrier, don't do it on your puter tethered to your phone. For ordinary web and email usage you should have no problems. Check the iphone and smartphone forums and check with the experts. Also see if your carrier TOS allows jailbreaking. If it does you can explain that you download stuff on a jailbroken phone. DISCLAIMER: YMMV on whether or not the carriers will ever figure out a way to defeat TetherMe or get proof that you are using it and TOS you.

Too bad your iphone is CDMA instead of GSM. You could unlock it and switch to tmobile. They allow tethering. You just can't get 4g or 3g data speeds due to a frequency conflict. But it is plenty fast enough for a light user like me.

 

[Slash McCoy]

Where do you download movies from? I used to have a Netflix account, which streams AFIK, and I need a very fast download speed (which my cable should have?) if I re-open my account. If I could download the whole movie and then watch it, I think that would be more preferable.

My movies are mostly all usenet downloads. I don't do NetFlix but I am thinking about trying them. My usenet server varies. I usually purchase block bandwidth. I rarely dl movies with utorrent because you mosltly only find torrents for newer movies and I don't need the hassle over DCMA etc. Also I don't care about streaming. It is probably more convenient to dl and play later than to stream. Streaming has as its only advantage the instant gratification of the thing.

 

[OldSaw]

Fios.

Thanks Jay, it's very high on my radar, but not available in my area yet.

 

[OldSaw]

My movies are mostly all usenet downloads. I don't do NetFlix but I am thinking about trying them. My usenet server varies. I usually purchase block bandwidth. I rarely dl movies with utorrent because you mosltly only find torrents for newer movies and I don't need the hassle over DCMA etc. Also I don't care about streaming. It is probably more convenient to dl and play later than to stream. Streaming has as its only advantage the instant gratification of the thing.

Hmmm, I'm not to up on all this lingo. Is usenet something I have to have a special account for, like Netflix? Is there a monthly fee? Not sure what a torrent or utorrent is. Looks like I have a little research to do.

I remember reading usenet posts years ago, but I can't remember how I did it, perhaps Yahoo. All I used it for was reading posts about subjects I was interested in, I didn't know I could get movies.

 

[Slash McCoy]

Hmmm, I'm not to up on all this lingo. Is usenet something I have to have a special account for, like Netflix? Is there a monthly fee? Not sure what a torrent or utorrent is. Looks like I have a little research to do.

I remember reading usenet posts years ago, but I can't remember how I did it, perhaps Yahoo. All I used it for was reading posts about subjects I was interested in, I didn't know I could get movies.

UseNet is an old internet protocol from before the WWW was invented. It uses NNTP instead of HTTP. Originally it was text only but as speed increased (I remember 300 baud modems... not 300kb, 300 baud!) someone figured out a simple way to encode binaries to the 7 bit standard of NNTP. Af first sending a scanned photograph was a big deal, but then we started using multipart posts and now you can easily and automatically encode an entire DVD and post it in a manner that even if a part or three are corrupted or missing, it can be recovered. Message retention for binaries was at first only a few weeks but now there are plenty of servers that claim 1000+ day retention. You need a newsreader capable of retrieving binaries. Some older ones don't do much except just download all the parts that you select. Others gather all the parts, download them, check them, recover, join, and decode without the user doing anything. NewsLeecher is a good binary newsreader.

At one time all ISPs had their own news server. Now, this is rare and the ISP servers generally suck anyway. So you generally get an account on a good server if you will be downloading or posting binaries. There are quite a few free text-only servers. When you sign up for an account on a paid server, you either pay so much a month, typically in the neighborhood of $10, or you get a bulk account with a certain number of GB. There is no monthly charge on the block account... just so much money for so many GB and when it is used up you get another block.

UseNet has a lot of old movies on some newsgroups. I mean silent, and the early days of talkies. No copyright on much of this stuff so you can download "Birth Of A Nation" or other classics without feeling guilty. There are of course recent flicks too, but you are venturing into illegality if you dl, for instance, "The Hunger Games".

Obviously you can post and dl other stuff besides movies. Books, pics, apps, binaries of all kinds. Due to the wild west nature of UseNet, many newsgroups are clogged with spam and porn. That is the dark side of freedom, I guess.

There are other protocols from the good ol days still around, too, such as FTP. POP3 and SMTP are the old email protocols but they are slowly being replaced, and many users actually use a web based email service these days such as gmail or yahoo mail, on their web browsers. Some protocols such as Gopher are pretty much dead. The World Wide Wait, as we used to call it, is so pervasive that many people thing that the WWW IS the internet. Well, it's not. It is just a johnny come lately addition to it.

 

[OldSaw]

UseNet is an old internet protocol from before the WWW was invented. It uses NNTP instead of HTTP. Originally it was text only but as speed increased (I remember 300 baud modems... not 300kb, 300 baud!) someone figured out a simple way to encode binaries to the 7 bit standard of NNTP. Af first sending a scanned photograph was a big deal, but then we started using multipart posts and now you can easily and automatically encode an entire DVD and post it in a manner that even if a part or three are corrupted or missing, it can be recovered. Message retention for binaries was at first only a few weeks but now there are plenty of servers that claim 1000+ day retention. You need a newsreader capable of retrieving binaries. Some older ones don't do much except just download all the parts that you select. Others gather all the parts, download them, check them, recover, join, and decode without the user doing anything. NewsLeecher is a good binary newsreader.

At one time all ISPs had their own news server. Now, this is rare and the ISP servers generally suck anyway. So you generally get an account on a good server if you will be downloading or posting binaries. There are quite a few free text-only servers. When you sign up for an account on a paid server, you either pay so much a month, typically in the neighborhood of $10, or you get a bulk account with a certain number of GB. There is no monthly charge on the block account... just so much money for so many GB and when it is used up you get another block.

UseNet has a lot of old movies on some newsgroups. I mean silent, and the early days of talkies. No copyright on much of this stuff so you can download "Birth Of A Nation" or other classics without feeling guilty. There are of course recent flicks too, but you are venturing into illegality if you dl, for instance, "The Hunger Games".

Obviously you can post and dl other stuff besides movies. Books, pics, apps, binaries of all kinds. Due to the wild west nature of UseNet, many newsgroups are clogged with spam and porn. That is the dark side of freedom, I guess.

There are other protocols from the good ol days still around, too, such as FTP. POP3 and SMTP are the old email protocols but they are slowly being replaced, and many users actually use a web based email service these days such as gmail or yahoo mail, on their web browsers. Some protocols such as Gopher are pretty much dead. The World Wide Wait, as we used to call it, is so pervasive that many people thing that the WWW IS the internet. Well, it's not. It is just a johnny come lately addition to it.

I thought you needed a special ISP to access usenet these days, as most of the popular services have blocked it. I also remember 300 baud modems... with a cradle for the phone handset. I thought I was pretty special when I got a 1200 baud modem and then they started installing them in the computer, woohoo!

Movies are what I'm interested in. I figured if I had usenet access I could dl just about any new release I wanted. It's starting to sound like it might just be easier to go back to Netflix.