What are my high speed 'Net options?

horned_froghorned_frog
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I am moving to a new apartment on 8/12 and apparently I cannot get either DSL or Cable. SWBell says DSL is not available, though according to dslavailability.com my new # in the apartment is available through them. I checked out RoadRunner (not avail. in Ft. Worth), Directvdsl, and earthlink, none have DSL. I called Charter Communications for the cable service, but they do not serve my apartment complex, someone I never heard of called TVMax does. I cannot find anything on their website about cable internet.



I was told something about IDSN vaguely by SWBell, but it doesn't seem as fast as DSL plus I saw it was $400 a month on their website which is about $325 more than I would want to pay for any kind of home service.

Am I not looking in/calling the right place? Is there any other options I can get? I CAN get sattelite TV in my apartment, but I guess the DirecTV DSL is not satellite based?



Please tell me I won't be stuck in dial up hell another 2 years...

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    tomahawktomahawk Posts: 178member
    First, call back your phone company about 2 or 3 different times. Talk to different people if possible. Call from a different number than your own. When we got DSL at our office (Verizon) someone else called and it registered as a # that would work. When I called from the office not a single one of our 5+ lines cleared and we are across the street from the phone company!



    I kept checking online, we passed, and finally called back using a different number and it passed all of their tests just fine.



    Also, you can get DirectTV or Dish DSL over satellite if you buy all their equipment from what I understand.



    Good Luck!
  • Reply 2 of 6
    chychchych Posts: 860member
    Well if that ISDN is PRI, then it is the speed of a T1 (~1.5MBps), if its BRI it is 64kbps...
  • Reply 3 of 6
    horned_froghorned_frog Posts: 577member
    Well according to the link below, even the 64k is $250, and the 128k is $400, which is simply too much for both my price range and for the speed.

    <a href="http://public.swbell.net/ISDN/lan_isdn_pricing.html"; target="_blank">http://public.swbell.net/ISDN/lan_isdn_pricing.html</a>;

    Maybe I am looking at the wrong thing???



    Oh, I have called twice, one lady told me that they would have DSL in 2 months, and another said 6-12. I would be prefectly happy with cable, but it seems like it is much harder to find info. on cable availability as opposed to DSL.



    Also, do you think moving into a metropolitan area would give me better dial up speeds? I live in the sticks right now, and my downloads average about 2.8 kbps, which is slow. Even if I could get 5-6 over a dialup I could *live* with that for a while longer.



    I also thought if worse comes to worse I could go to the university and download any big files I want (movies, OS upgrades, etc) onto a zip disk or something, but that would be a last resort <img src="confused.gif" border="0">
  • Reply 4 of 6
    kingofsomewherehotkingofsomewherehot Posts: 4,180member
    DirectTV does offer satellite service (it is DIFFERENT than DSL, they offer both) . Satellite is one-way though... you can downloads come through the satellite, but you still have to be on a phone-line to upload requests. Still gives you a highspeed download though, and most people don't use much bandwidth UPloading.



    Also ... in Houston, there is a wireless service available (I don't use it, but a friend does). If you are within range of one of thier antennas, you can get high-speed connections wirelessly (both directions) (they supply you with the wireless modem) ... Not sure if thats available in Dallas, but he's really pleased with it here.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    tomahawktomahawk Posts: 178member
    My understanding is that both DirectTV and Dish Network offer some form of two way over satallite. I have not researched this but our neighbors at a cabin have because we can't get a phone line up there so no internet! (really hard I might add).



    None of the neighbors have done it yet because it requires buying all new equipment (new dish, receiver, etc) and you have to have them come install it all. They won't let you do it. This was all as of a year or so ago.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    scifiencescifience Posts: 55member
    [quote]Originally posted by Tomahawk:

    <strong>My understanding is that both DirectTV and Dish Network offer some form of two way over satallite. I have not researched this but our neighbors at a cabin have because we can't get a phone line up there so no internet! (really hard I might add).</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The two way satelite(sp?) service from DirecTV is called DirecWay (http://www.direcway.com/). I am not positive, but I beleive that Dish Network no longer offers any sort of Internet access, but their parent company, EchoStar, does.
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