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acidflame
@cecomet.net

acidflame

Anon

[speed/latency] Speeds, A sad and true story

So now I'm stuck on fairpoint dsl. 4mbps/768k .....Its getting to the point where its hard to download or upload anything because the big file sizes now days in games and movies....I wish there was another option with higher speeds and lower latency but there isn't.

This makes me sad because I was born in Sacramento, california where comcast had higher speeds than these in 2006. I dont understand why this company doesn't keep up with the times. I see all the 50+mbps speeds being offered now and its driving me batty especially with the price of them, they are cheaper in most cases than my 60 dollar dsl monthly charge.

I honestly feel now that moving is the only way I'm ever going to see any higher speeds and its sad because the town with 50mbps+ connections is only 2 miles away.

What would you guys do?

tschmidt
MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Consolidated Com..
·Republic Wireless
·Hollis Hosting

tschmidt

MVM

DSL speed is determined by circuit length, the longer the phone line the slower the speed.

Cable has other trade offs. All customers within a given node share available capacity, Increasing capacity is a matter of adding more nodes to reduce the number of customers per node.

Right now FairPoint is struggling to meet the conditions of the Verizon sale to increase DSL coverage. As such they are focused on rolling out DSL to unserved areas, not increasing speed.

We are on the 3mbps/768 plan. Wish we qualified for faster service as 7mbps/768 is only $4 a month more. Having said that have not had a problem with downloading software and Netflix streaming is fine.

Have you verified you are actually getting the speed you are paying for?

If you are on the 4 mbps plan means you are close to the FairPoint Central Office. Is your town serviced by Cable TV? If so is that an option? What about local Wireless ISP?

/tom

Truckinguy2
@myfairpoint.net

Truckinguy2 to acidflame

Anon

to acidflame
My Fair Point speeds here in Northern NH are always slow now. Paying for 1.5 mbps download speeds but only get .50 or less. I called them last week. They had me reset and change the name of connection in main menu. I got speeds of 1.3 for only a couple of hours then back to .36 or .50 etc. I've been keeping a log of speeds every day and will call them again tomorrow.
I feel it's really useless now with FairPoint. I mean to keep calling them. They just keep working me around in circles.
I haven't had steady good speeds for a long time. The NH public utilities commission says they don't require FP to give certain speeds. But I'm paying for 1.5 and are not getting it. I can't change to cable here and other options put it way out of my budget. I can't believe they are allowed to do this to us.
xQim
join:2003-09-20
01234

xQim to acidflame

Member

to acidflame
Get creative? You can make quite a powerful directional WIFI antenna using basically scraps. I received a 54Mbps connection at 1/2 mile distance with a parabolic shaped aluminium drop light ($5) and a Netgear Wireless-N USB WIFI Card. Granted that this is only using the 5V supply offered from a USB. If you are technically disinclined and have a bit of extra cash you can go on Amazon and buy a directional WIFI antenna and boost it. Get on board with someone in the other town and get two directional antennas, download NetStumbler to find the superior signal and point to point antenna direction (the best spot for which they would be pointed at one another) and Abracadabra! I used to work on directional WIFI antennas that were relatively cheap and at full power had a 32-Mile Range. Now, like satellite, you would have to take a hit on latency as microwaves and bandwidth require more time to transmit through the air, but it would be worth it. It all might sound silly, but it works fantastic. I'll help if need be.