November 23, 2004

• Maybe not - we moved into an apartment on the East Coast and our phone company/DSL provider (Verizon) couldn't tell us until our phone lines had been set up for a week or so, whether they would be able to support a DSL connection. Having said that, we had a pretty fair notion that we'd be OK, seeing as other people in the immediate area were able to get DSL.
• You can't get cable internet? I'm a little leery of DSL. I liked it due to the fact that it has a faster upload speed (hosting games on the 'net), but I'm much happier with the stability and download speed of my cable modem.
• yeah roly if you went with high-speed cable you could just call the company or go to its web site and you should know easily. my sweetie loves his. he watches baseball games so it has to be fast. works great.
• Debaser- we had the opposite experience. Cable access was pretty funky, and we have found DSL much more reliable in overall speed. Possible urban myth perpetuation - I've heard that our add cable speed experience might be due to a whole bunch of people turning on their TV when they get home. Whatever, things definitely could get slow on the weekend.
• hmm... I definitely don't want to turn this into a Cable vs. DSL thread, as that doesn't answer your issue, (I tried addressing your question, but my google fu sucks today, or they really buried that info on the 'net) but I've found that if you purchase a router it can even out your cable speed. I know for alot of rural areas, however, cable speed is fairly blazing, and DSL simply isn't an option. Of course, you could always spend about $500,000 plus $4,500 per month, for a direct fiber optic connection to an ISP with a T5 pipe to the net. :)
• Get it in black - they go faster.
• I think you'd really have to find out who the telco is there before you do anything else. If nothing else, get a phonebook for the region and call each one. Once you do, however, a caveat: I was lied to by the telco regarding DSL availability - they said 'Yes' on the first two calls and then after they had set up my landline, said 'Wait, no.' I cancelled the land-line immediately and went with cable (and a cell phone.) I'm in a semi-rural area (the closest thing to me is a Beagle Farm) and it came down to that or dial up. You may find the same.
• best of luck to you rolypolyman! The Texas Handbook Online has a bit of info on which telcos operate in TX, if that's any help (excellent resource for anything Texan). You may want to contact a neighbor/see if there is a neighborhood association/talk to someone in the nearest town to get some info. There may be no option to get cable, since many of the rural Texans I know rely on satellite service. if it's any consolation, it took me 5 calls to 3 different places (2 collect calls) to set up regular phone service when I moved to Austin from NY. SBC isn't the swiftest.
• What company do your rural Texan friends use for their satellite Internet? We knew we had that option but heard too many bad things about it.
• sorry to mislead--I meant that they relied on satellite tv because there was no cable TV service. I did look into the satellite internet service for some family, but since they are mac users there was no support. what region are you looking at?
• I have a friend in rural Colorado who was unable to get high speed internet through the cable company or phone company, and satellite wasn't an option. After dialing up for years, he was finally able to get DSL through making a pact with the devil and signing up with AOL Broadband. Through some sort of AOL wizardry, they were able to get him DSL when no one else could. This might be an option, if you can stomach giving AOL your money.
• can you just go to the neighbors and ask them who the phone company is? That seems the easiest way. Sattelite internet is ok for browsing but not for gaming. Because the data has to go up to the satellite and back down and then to the computer and then all teh way back, the lag can be pretty noticable I've been told (no first hand use).
• I guess there's also a sort of triangulation method to getting to the answer without having to just talk to sales people: Find out who is the telco in the area. Call their local problem-report hotline and find out where their nearest CO is to your place. Then call that company's DSL tech support line and find out what their rule is about DSL distance to CO from the place. And then mapquest it. Usually the rule is 2 miles from the CO, and if mapquest says that your new address is less than 2 miles' drive from the CO, it's almost certainly less as the fiber flies. Of course, all this may not save you any time compared to just slogging through the sales-dork lines. When in doubt, though, I call tech support before sales.
• The last time we lived in a rural place, the CO (central office) was 14 miles away. However we were 0.7 miles from a state highway, which I assume had some sort of trunk cable. That's why I'm not sure that a DIY method for measuring distance would work.
• And we had DSL at that location, BTW, being 14 miles from the telco. It was SBC.
• Ah, well see, that's my city-boy helpfulness for ya. :) My telco (which was Verizon) told me that the only thing that mattered was the CO. But that was in urban LA.
• I wonder if "CO" is a loose term for any trunk or fiber optic line. That was my impression based on the DSL service we had.
• Nooooooo Not AOL!!!!! We support a lot of teleworkers, but your agreement with our company (as far as uptime, etc.) is null and void if you use AOL as your ISP....
• If all else fails you can get sattelite which is a fast downlink but uses your phone for its uplink. Or ISDN, 128kbs full-duplex sounds slow but for typical interweb stuff its pretty speedy. I'll take it over a dialup anytime. You may want to consider some more creative solutions like end to end wireless.
• Huh, I was going to say satellite too. *puts hands in pockets, rocks back and forth on feet, makes funny noises*
• Satellite absolutely works. I use it for the rural half of my life. It doesn't necessarily depend on a telephone for the uplink.