Stuck with stone-age internet... any ideas?

steve-in-kville

steve-in-kville

Joined
Dec 25, 2001
Messages
1,139
I've been using dail-up for years. We have cable through our area, but no DSL. Our house has had cable jacks for years, but we never used it (don't have TV anymore).

I checked with the cable company... they charge about $50/month for just cable internet service. I've also looked at broadband wireless cards that connect to the USB port on my computer, but we're still looking at $50 once the initial introductory offer ends. We have good cell service in our area, so I'm assuming these services would work just as well.

Any ideas?? Am I missing any options?

steve
 
Maybe you could get a package deal to run both your internet data connection and your telephone through the cable company. If you do any significant amount of long distance calling you might save money using telephone-over-Internet-protocol. There is a move going on to establish a high performance wideband wireless network, but it isn't ready yet. It will also be slow to penetrate more remote areas.

You could see if one of your nearby neighbors would be willing to share their cable network connection (this might not be strictly legal). What you would need is for them to have a wireless router connection to their cable modem. You would need a USB-connected wireless network interface. You would build yourself something like a cantenna (directional enclosure or reflector) to increase the distance that you can connect to his router.

Of course some unscrupulous people would simply pirate their neighbors wireless connection without asking. My son played around with a stove pipe cantenna and was able to pick up a network two miles away.
 
have you tried the dial-ups with the accelerators? like netscape? i used to use these. while they are not near as fast as high speed, they were a lot faster than plain dial-up.,,,VWB.
 
Don't get usb connected wireless thingies. I tried that and they sucked, range and speed were poor. Get a PCI card or wireless laptop card, works way better. I know people that exist on the whims of free or unsecured wireless.
 
A good CLOSE proxy and accelerator will help you out. Your ISP probably has a proxy service. A proxy caches common pages locally so you don't have to wait for data to traverse as much of the internet. On the downside, proxies aren't as useful for frequently changing sites like BFC or CNN.

Turn off ALL images in your browser. Text content transfers pretty quickly. Pictures and movies and sound slow things down. You can make these settings in your browser.

A neighbors wi-fi signal will often be slower than dial-up. And it's usually illegal. Cellular plans can be pretty steep too and just as slow or worse than dial-up.

There is also satellite internet. It won't be cheaper than the cable service in all likelihood. But you should check it out.

I think when you compare all the options, the cable internet will be the best bang for your buck. And I hate cable.
 
One more idea. Many sites have special pages for mobile devices. Try and hit those sites as they're optimized for slow connections.
 
Cable speed is definitely worth $50 a month, especially if you are a heavy user like me who works at home on a laptop. I had to use dial-up recently on vaycay in Gatlinburg, and I darn near felt like vivisecting myself with a rusty church key while waiting for the dang thing to load.

right on
 
Broadband is worth $50 bucks a month to me and depending on the speed is possibly not a bad price.I pay over $40 for my DSL so I say sign up for that, just make sure you take the proper security precautions when you do as broadband is move vulnerable to threats.
 
here in rural ontario we have wireless "broadband" that is transmitted from the top of silos and grain elevators. Not as near as fast as cable/dsl, but much better than dial up (sometimes) but at least I dont have to tie up a phone line or dial out every time i want to use the net.
 
Whatever you do, DON'T get satellite internet service.

Extremely expensive, intermittent reception, LOUSY customer service... but they're the only option in rural areas where cable and DSL don't go. Blech.
 
If you use a cantenna you need to have an external wifi adapter. There is nothing intrinsically bad about a good USB wifi adapter and it is the only way to go if you need a directional antenna. If you have to optimize your dial-up connection you may need to shop for an ISP that has good acceleration and local caching. I guess you would need to Google for ISP reviews.
 
Steve, can you get Internet service through your local phone company? Here we can get a DSL connection that way, but there's also a local ISP company that buys the phone company's extra bandwidth, and I have a DSL connection through this local company for several bucks a month less than if I dealt directly with my phone company. Plus I have local tech rep help from folks who speak my language and care about my problem, plus I can pay them monthly with my check instead of having to let them bill my credit card. After our awful experiences with AOL, I'll NEVER have something like this billed to a credit card again!!!
 
A good fire and send smoke signals.

;)

Fifty bucks is still on the cheap side for Cable Internet IMO.

WIMAX will be turned out North America wide in the next 12 - 18 Months and, supposedly, prices will be very competitive with DSL and Cable. Uplink and Downlink speeds are as fast or faster than existing cable. Downside will be you will have to upgrade your computer too.

WIMAX is supposed to have a coverage area similar to rural cell phone ie 30 Miles or so.
 
Thanks for the great replies. I'll do some searching over the holiday weekend and see what is available for my area.

steve
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top