Connection Options

[GeekHeretic]

Hi All
Just found this wonderful magazine and site last month just as my wife and I are shopping for property along the NY VT border with the ambition to start a homestead. Synchronicity is a wonderful thing.

My question is about net access. I am lucky in that since 9/11 I am able to telecommute to work. I work as a lead software developer for an insurance company and build a number of community activist web sites. Since I want to keep my hand in things, and not immediately quit my day job, I need at least decent connectivity to the internet.

Looking over the options here is what I am seeing
1. Dial up. Least favorable, slowest speed.
2. DSL/ISDN. Neither are commonly available in the locations I am looking at.
3. Cable. The cable company will stretch a line for me but the cost is nuts.
4. Satellite. I have seen such a mix bag of reviews I am not sure whether this will work for me or not. The 2 most common seem to be Blue Sky and Hughes and both companies have mixed reputations.
5. Cellular. An odd thing is most of the properties I am looking at have decent cell signals. Officially the cell companies seem unhappy about using cells as your only ISP. Also most companies have volume restrictions where your bandwidth is halved after you reach a certain threshold.
6. Shortwave. I am curious about this it has alot of potential but information seems short on supply.
7. Dedicated line. Expensive to install and run, but I could defray the cost by creating a local isp.

So my question to the community as a whole is what access is everyone using?

Thanks for any info

GeekHeretic

[Deberosa]

Hi All
Just found this wonderful magazine and site last month just as my wife and I are shopping for property along the NY VT border with the ambition to start a homestead. *Synchronicity is a wonderful thing.

My question is about net access. I am lucky in that since 9/11 I am able to telecommute to work. I work as a lead software developer for an insurance company and build a number of community activist web sites. *Since I want to keep my hand in things, and not immediately quit my day job, I need at least decent connectivity to the internet.

Looking over the options here is what I am seeing
1. Dial up. *Least favorable, slowest speed.
2. DSL/ISDN. Neither are commonly available in the locations I am looking at.
3. Cable. The cable company will stretch a line for me but the cost is nuts.
4. Satellite. I have seen such a mix bag of reviews I am not sure whether this will work for me or not. The 2 most common seem to be Blue Sky and Hughes and both companies have mixed reputations.
5. Cellular. An odd thing is most of the properties I am looking at have decent cell signals. Officially the cell companies seem unhappy about using cells as your only ISP. Also most companies have volume restrictions where your bandwidth is halved after you reach a certain threshold.
6. Shortwave. *I am curious about this it has alot of potential but information seems short on supply.
7. Dedicated line. *Expensive to install and run, but I could defray the cost by creating a local isp.

So my question to the community as a whole is what access is everyone using? *

Thanks for any info

GeekHeretic








Hi there! I just joined the telecommuting world in August after over 30 years of trudging to the 9-5 Well, really 7-6 but who's counting! I am a software developer for systems that support higher education institutions.

I lucked out and have access to DSL. There are some on my team, which is spread all over the country, who have satellite and one that I know of that uses cell access - she is in Montanna. It's just starting the nasty weather but the satelitte people seem to have far less outages than the celular people. Just last week in Montanna the cell tower blew over and they don't really rush to fix them apparently. She was stuck on dial up for a couple of days and that is plain torture!

One other thing about DSL - there is "slow" DSL and "fast" DSL (more expensive of course). I signed up before I got this job and took the "slow" option. If you are doing your work over a VPN the "slow" option works just fine - it's the server that slows me down rather than my connection with that speed of link.

I'll be interested in other responses because we sort of halfway think of moving more remote and this very thing would be an issue. I am very surprised I could get DSL where I am at now!

How do ATM's connect? Has to be something reliable?

[AlchemyAcres]

1.5 mbps DSL here, totally Micro$oft free for 14 months now, life is good. LOL

~Martin 8)

[GeekHeretic]

MS free? I support too much MS based programs to go that route, but I have a few linux boxes setup around the house. What distro are you using?

For the folks with Satellite experience. Are you happy with it? Is it fast enough to watch video on demand without being painful?

GH

[AlchemyAcres]

For general surfing and such I use Damn Small or Puppy linux run completely in ram...no HD on my laptop....
For more serious stuff I use Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

~Martin :)

[woodburner]

Well I have a second phone line in my house for dial up. Slow but it works and I can use it for a fax. My wife also works from home so she can be online while talking on the phone.
DSL is not an option - too far from the CO
Cable is an option but I do not like the cost and am also a bit concerned with the security issues - easy to sniff communications of all on the same piece of cable

I do have a wireless broadband card for my work and it does work from almost anywhere - but it is almost $60 per month (my employer pays for it) but I can get good speeds though ~90K download speed.
I am really hoping Verizon puts in FIOS
wb

[Northern_bushrat]

We have Hughes satellite internet, mostly because it was the one and only option. I would only recommend that if you could share it with some other people because the set-up is expensive and so are the monthly fees. But depending on what bandwidth you'd need for your work, sharing might not be an option.
We keep having ome sort of trouble with it about every 3 months or so.

[GeekHeretic]

How do you find the speed? is it possible to say... watch you tube videos?

GH