Internet Access Options in Fern Forest

[mauigirl]

I use it and it's a good service. I got free equipment and installation.

check it out at www.starband.com/hawaii

[kalakoa]

You can always order a T1 from Telcom; they can't say "no" but it can be "expensive" (I was quoted $600/mo).

Back in the days before broadband was "generally available", it was not uncommon for like-minded neighbors to share a T1; this used to be called a "toasternet", originally necessary because broadband was expensive/difficult, but still happening today in "underserved" areas.

I couldn't find enough nearby neighbors to share the cost, or I'd have built one by now.

[oink]

I don't think T1 is very fast by today's standards.

Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.

[kalakoa]

Granted: T1 has a slower bitrate than DSL or cable -- it's also much faster than dialup, and for most Telcom service areas, those are your only two (hardwired) options.

[jerry]

In Orchidland our dsl internet grinds to a halt in the evenings. After spending about three hours (mostly on hold) with Hawaiian Telcom I was told they knew about the problem (excessive number of people on line) but had no plans to address the issue.

I am going to look into satellite and breaking the contract with Hawaii Telcom. If they will not live up to there end, why should I?

Jerry
Art and Orchids B&B
http://www.artandorchids.com

[Aaron S]

DSL service extends out 3 miles from the central office/ remote terminal. However, the maximum speed at such lengths will be very slow (e.g 1.5Mbps). Faster DSL speeds are available when the loop lengths are shorter. For example, 13,000 feet = 3Mbps, 8,000 feet= 7Mbps, 5,000 feet= 11Mbps and so on. There has been instances where 100Mbps is possible over the copper loop. However, you pretty much have to live next to the central office to get those kind of speeds.

T-1 service may be slow on the surface, but in reality it isn't. A T-1 circuit is dedicated circuit between you an the telephone company. DSL and Cable Modems offer faster speeds, but you are sharing bandwidth with your neighbors, which won't with a T-1 circuit.

[kalakoa]

Exactly: T1 is "commercial-grade", with the bandwidth provisioned all the way through the network, you are (more or less) guaranteed the full 1.5Mb/s, 24x7x365, no throttling, no caps, and the bandwidth is symmetrical (you can serve up 1.5Mb/s to the world, if you want).

You also get a real service level, usually 2h response and less than 4h downtime unless things are really bad.

Speed of G.lite ADSL (which is what the industry standardized on) varies with distance, but 3Mb/s (but only 640Kb/s up, the A is for "asymmetric") is possible at 17500 feet if the lines are reasonably clean. In remote areas, however, the bottleneck is the bandwidth out of the remote -- your 3Mb/s loop doesn't do you any good when you're fighting for a slice of the (massively oversold) uplink. As you'd expect, this follows density/distance; remotes out on the Red Road are fed by a bundle of T1s, but the Orchidland and Hawaiian Acres remotes seem to have a fiber uplink.

For anyone looking/guessing: a remote will have multiple cabinets (not just the green terminal head), at least one cabinet will have a connector for a portable generator, and there will be a power pedestal w/meter.

There are other (slower) flavors of DSL which the telcoms simply don't bother to deploy; SDSL will run 400Kb/s up to 25000 feet, IDSL is only 144Kb/s but has virtually no distance limitation. Either is faster than dialup, and in most cases will outperform any available wireless option.

Telcoms have always maximized their profits by "cream-skimming", which translates to "serve the highest-density areas" -- if the Feds didn't require them to bring dialtone out to the sticks, there wouldn't be any phone service in most of the low-density "ag" subdivisions. Unfortunately, these rules are outdated; "dialtone" really should be extended to include at least 1.5Mb/s, especially as Government (and the private sector) put everything online.

A few words about satellite: long latency makes it useless for online gaming, low usage caps make any kind of streaming impractical, and it tends to be wonky with the weather ("rain fade", etc). For email and other lightweight tasks, it works okay.

[kalakoa]

Netflix has decided to start publishing monthly ISP rankings -- and they should know, given how much data they serve up.

http://blog.netflix.com/2012/12/november...r-usa.html

[dehenky]

Thanks Melissa! What kind of data rates do you get with AT&T? Satellite for interactive data isn't the greatest, regardless of the quoted data rate, due to the latency introduced by the satellite hops. It may be much faster on a packet by packet basis, but it still ends up "feeling" like a modem. It's especially bad if you're using a VPN or SSL connection.

quote:

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Originally posted by YurtGirl

Dial up, satellite or cell phone. Those are your options. A booster will help, not the cheap ones, but the $300 -$400 ones. We have a Wilson. There are other posts about this that go over all the options for the area. Satellite is expensive to install and still have high monthly fees and limited monthly usage. I prefer cell phone and use AT&T.

Melissa Fletcher
___________________________
"Make yurts, not war" Bill Coperthwaite, 1973

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-Mahalo
David

[Punachiq]

I live in Hawaiian Acres and use Virgin Mobile I spend $35 for the unlimited text and data plan with 300 talk minutes and then an extra $15 a month so I can use my HTC Evo as a hotspot for the computers. We run Hulu, Netflix, and anything else we want for that $50 a month. It slows down sometimes but only effects television watching. This may or may not help since I'm not in Fern Forest but it might be an (affordable) option for ya.