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Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
| reply to ksmithofwa
Re: Wait a second
Excuse me but most of us have Hawaiian Telcom landline because we errrr...need a telephone and it is the ONLY Carrier Class service in Hawaii at this time. We have no choices ...we have Hawaiian Telcom or no reliable phone service. So, I, and probably Konaman too, consider paying for our landline as a simple necessity that has nothing to do with internet services and is not something we can just blow off. So, don't try and tell me that DSL from Hawaiian Telcom costs $57 a month! It costs $30 a month as long as you get it for a year. I would get it but it is not available in my area of Hilo. I have Road Runner and I don't pay $45 a month either. But if I could get DSL here, I would even though it is slower on the down speed than RR but on the upspeed where we desperately need a higher upspeed on RR...DSL shines. RR is getting a speed increase in January to 7000/768 but the upload is not set yet and may only be 512.
Another thing, why would I want to pay $30 a month for DSL as backup as you mentioned when I get UNLIMITED dialup backup from Road Runner? Why don't you have Road Runner and can DSL and Clearwire? Road Runner is actually still a better deal than Hawaiian Telcom DSL because of the free dialup....unless you consider customer service.
--
"If you want to do DRM on a PC then you need to treat the user as the enemy." Ross Anderson in "`Trusted Computing' Frequently Asked Questions"
»www.ie7.com/ | |
ksmithofwa
join:2006-08-04
Honolulu, HI
 ·Hawaiian Telcom
| I agree that having a telephone line has nothing to do with internet access until you decide that you need internet access. At that point you have to decide if you are going to pay the $37.95 less the $8.00 discount because you now have the phone service AND the DSL service. Funny how you need the phone line to get the DSL service. You can't just say to Hawaiian Telcom, "hey brah, I no need to talk on the phone so just hook me up with the DSL and no charge me for da ability to talk." No with DSL you MUST have a phone number whether you use the phone number or not. So it becomes a chicken before the egg thing. You won't get any egggs(DSL) without a chicken(the phone line.) I totally understand you living in Hilo that you can't use your cell phone to do your talking and just hook up with RR, but I think that if you're gonna hook up with the cable company anyways to get your television that you might as well get RR. You're not happy with the RR upload speeds? Bummers as you don't have a choice since the phone lines in your area must be old and can't handle the high frequency signal. I still remember getting my DSL and they had to test the line so that they could guarantee me good service. Once that was done then they got back to me and I signed up and bye bye went RR.
No doubt that you and the Konaman probably have to have landlines so you can talk on the phone because there simply isn't the 'critical mass' of people living in your respective areas to justify the cell phone companies putting up antennas. Those antennas cost quite a bit to put up so the companies have to be able to justify it by having a certain level of customers to make a profit.
I apologize to you and Konaman if I have offended you in anyway since the scenario is different as I live in the Big City so the choices are much more plentiful here. People here live on their cell phones and many have simply abandoned their landlines. I just meant to comment on the fact that Clearwire is a great alternative to DSL and RR depending on what your personal needs are. Obviously it is not something that you and Konaman can hope to use as your areas won't see Clearwire until maybe Clearwire decides that their Wimax technology can be executed on the Big Island successfully and profitably. If you read up on Wimax technology then you will see that if they ever do launch Wimax technolgy that you will find that you will probably want Clearwire at that time as you will be able to take your laptop and other internet accessing devices anywhere you want. Until then I guess we can agree or disagree that DSL costs you about $30.00 since you have to have the landline anyway so from your standpoint it is an add-on. But you are getting a discount of $8.00 and the real price is $37.95 less the $8.00. The actual price is the $30.00 figure you quoted. So you already are paying for the chicken(phone line) and you want to add the eggs(DSL) but for you in Hilo it just won't happen until they improve the infrastructure. As for Konaman, well he seems to be more concerned that I am pushing for Clearwire and I am not. I think that Clearwire is a great way to get some reasonable internet speeds and has a great feature in that you can take it just about anywhere you go and be able to access the internet. If you and or Konaman believe that Clearwire is more expensive then just think of it as paying for that ability to take your internet just about anywhere you go something that RR nor DSL can ever do. | |
Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
| i wasn't offended....I just was puzzled by some of what you said. You do have a great deal more choices on Oahu (in Honolulu particularly) than we on the Big Island where quit a few folks cannot get anything except dialup internet access from HawaiianTel. Actually, there are areas on the East of this island outside of Hilo (Puna) where DSL is available and yet I, right in Hilo, cannot get DSL. The reason I can't is because I am too far from the CO. There is only one CO for Hilo. There are three condos here next to each other, on the beach, as well as homes but Verizon and now Hawaiian Telcom have no interest in putting a remote terminal out here. The area surrounding Prince Kuhio Plaza also cannot get DSL.
I don't have a cell phone. I would like to have one but I can't justify the cost of a cell phone plus the cost of a landline phone. Hawaiian Telcom and Verizon cellular cover almost all the Big Island now. Other carriers are much more spotty and I don't want either of the ones that cover most of the island. But the main reason I don't go to cell phone only is because cell phones don't give you reliable 911 coverage. You have to have a landline for emergencies and I can't afford both cell and landline. The reason I don't leave HawaiianTelcom landline and go with Oceanic's VoIP is partly because VoIP is more expensive than a landline and also because it too requires (in Hawaii) that you also have a landline for emergenices. Oceanic decided to NOT apply to the PUC for Carrier Class service for its VoIP. Oceanic has told me that they will never apply for this status and that they recommend anyone having VoIP with them also have a landline for emergencies.
Hawaii is wonderful but in technological areas we are very far behind the Mainland and will remain behind especially outside Oahu. VoIP in almost all Time Warner franchises except Oceanic is Carrier Class and you ditch the landline. Oceanic would have to spend a lot to make VoIP here carrier class and they don't want to do that. Hawaiian Telcom is showing no signs of ever giving us fiber ....again...Hawaii is a bad place to live technologically.
As for your experience with Road Runner getting slow at peak usage hours, did you speak to tier 3 about this? Did Oceanic send out someone to fix the problem? What did they say? Both Konaman and I have extensive experience with Oceanic customer service and extensive experience with the difficulty in getting Oceanic to fix problems. You can read about our experiences at »www.fix.rr.com (the archived old main page is what you want).
I would never put up with the speeds you say you were getting....at best you got 2000 down? When was this? You realize we went to 5ms down in January 2005 and are going to 7ms this January (that is what I have been told)? Did you have RR when we went to 5ms down? The network was very shaky back then ...it was a major mess. You may have read my posts about it in the RR forum. But Oceanic got that fixed end of July 2005 and most folks, on Oahu especially, began to see high speeds. I still had problems. When RR was at 3ms down (Sept 2003-Jan 2005) I got 3ms down 24/7 even to the East Coast. Then came the speed increase and I started getting 2ms down. I happen to know many of the tier 3 techs so I complained and complained.
Did you have RR after Oceanic bought us the excellent MySpeed test from VisualWare? What speed did you get on that during prime usage hours? I get 4800 down usually at any time and just recently VisualWare put a server in San Jose (as well as their original server in Virginia) and I get 4600-4700 on the test to San Jose...to Virginia it is about 3800-3900 which is too low and I continue to complain to Oceanic regarding Road Runner's peering agreements.
But I have gotten way off the the topic of ClearWire. I can understand if you want portability that it would be nice to have. I don't have a laptop (two desktops) so that is meaningless for me to have portability. I don't want a laptop. You mentioned that you cannot take RR with you...that is not true on Oahu and I think one spot in Hilo now ...on Oahu there are hotspots for RR wireless connectivity and you can ask for the connectivity in an area you want. I think there may be one already in Hilo.
--
"If you want to do DRM on a PC then you need to treat the user as the enemy." Ross Anderson in "`Trusted Computing' Frequently Asked Questions"
»www.ie7.com/ | |
ksmithofwa
join:2006-08-04
Honolulu, HI
·Hawaiian Telcom
| It has been quite awhile since I had RR. I don't recall exactly what year I dumped them. It was well before the timeline that you've quoted that's for sure.
When I have some time or if I need more speed then I will look into RR again. Might as well since I have cable TV. The thing that bugs me about RR though is that if you lose your RR signal then you've lost your TV signal too so what does one do then? If you have DSL or some other carrier then you still can do your thing even if the TV is gone.
Thanks for the info on RR as you have now planted it into my brain that I should take a look at it again at a later date.
I still believe that Clearwire is on the right track in terms of what it can do versus what RR and DSL can't do. As for hotspots, those are here and there, but you are once again tied to a geographical location as the distance from the broadcast point is limited. With the Clearwire you can go anywhere you can get a signal. If one wants to they can even set up a hotspot anywhere they want using their Clearwire. Like I said before, if you(being anyone and not you in particular) think that Clearwire is overpriced then think of it in terms of you're paying for broadband access that you can take with you anywhere. In response to Konaman's comment on pathetic speeds, I have addressed that already, but I will address it here again. Pathetic to you maybe totally acceptable to others. I have no idea what Konaman is doing with his connection and why he feels the need for insane amounts of speed. Frankly I believe that most people are content with the speeds that are anywhere above 750 to 800kpbs. I know someone who is very happy with their Clearwire and they used to have RR not very long ago. I quote them as saying,"hmmmmm it doesn't seem much slower than what we had." But again I state that what is acceptable for one person may be totally unacceptable for people like Konaman. It just depends on what you're doing. Again Konaman I say, "to each his own. and it's all good brah. If you're happy with what you got then great. If others are happy with what they got then great." So to say that speeds are pathetic without actually trying it and experiencing the freedom of using your computer anywhere you want is like saying something like,"oh Mercedes Benzs are pathetic," when you've never driven one and only go by what you've heard or read. One man's (or woman's) pathetic is another man's(or woman's) perfectly fine or acceptable. I am trying hard here to be reasonable and fair. Again, I apologize if my first posting offended you Konaman or anyone else out there. I just thought that the Clearwire was good for me, but I thought that I had posted an impartial opinion. I guess it didn't come across that way and for that I apologize.
Nuff said on my part. Like we locals say too,"I no like waste my time already doing this." Yeah, I don't want to go around and around with anyone. Just waste time. It's been nice chatting with you two on this medium. I wish you both all the best and I hope that when Wimax finally gets here(to Hawaii) that they will bring it to your island also then you can get internet anywhere you go pretty much. By then they should have the speeds up higher too. Aloha to you both and to all who have spent time reading this thread. I am out of here. | |
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