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McLovin
Chicka chicka yeah
Premium
join:2005-06-12
Fairbanks, AK
clubs: | ....Sucks
Yeah, this ISP blows. If you can avoid them, do so. | |
doggerale
join:2007-04-22
North Pole, AK
| Hi Desperate - BBR says Alaska Communications System is no longer in business. Hmmm, I'm on it right now and you are correct, it does need help. On the good side my connection is only $20 a month and reliable; the bad; 300 down and 87 up. Am also bundled in with their phone service. | |
McLovin
Chicka chicka yeah
Premium
join:2005-06-12
Fairbanks, AK
clubs:
 ·GCI.net
 ·PTIAlaska.NET
1 edit | Yeah, they shouldn't qualify to be an ISP per BBR standards. And yes, I know that BBR lists them as no longer in operation, I have already IMed Karl about this........twice. Apparently he agrees. I am still dial up ridden as this company refuses to upgrade our area off of a seizcor carrier. So fortunately, now that they have just added the goVocal (crappy name for an equally crappy service) VoIP service bundled with naked dsl (kind of a catch-22....), I am vowing that after I move into GCI territory, I will NEVER have ANY service from ACS. CRAPPY company.
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My Baby: Intel D865PERL, P4 3.2Ghz, 1024MB DDR, XFX 6800 Ultra | |
McLovin
Chicka chicka yeah
Premium
join:2005-06-12
Fairbanks, AK
clubs: | Just so you are aware, my opnion still stands. | |
RavenMill
join:2007-07-14
Fairbanks, AK
| reply to McLovin
Funny how someone in seattle can be complaining about an ISP that is in ALASKA ONLY and showing his connection speed from there.
Considering that GCI is the alternative, I think ACS has definately got the upper hand there. We have 1.5Mb Up and Down. We have, in 4 years, had ONE day of outage, and that was because someone had cut the line while doing construction.
We Alaskans are somewhat proud folk, and really get turned off by outsiders trying to tell us what we should or shouldn't like. people in the "lower 48" should mind their own business and stop trying to show false speedtests.
Note my speedtest here, and I'm actually IN Alaska, not some wannabe in seattle...
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RavenMill
join:2007-07-14
Fairbanks, AK | If ya wanna see my connection from Fairbanks to Seattle:
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McLovin
Chicka chicka yeah
Premium
join:2005-06-12
Fairbanks, AK
clubs:
·GCI.net
·PTIAlaska.NET
| I'm not from seattle. I'm from Kenai you dupe. Several people on this forum can vouch for that. And you think that ACS has the upper hand?
Let me give you a little insight. ACS's fastest package they offer currently (which is only available in Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks) is 3Mbps/512Kbps for Residential service. Not to mention this costs $89/mo. GCI offers 7Mbps/384Kbps (over twice as fast, in case you can't do the math). for $69.99/mo. with an unlimited download cap as opposed to ACS's invisible cap of 75GB if you didn't know that either. ALSO, GCI bases their speed off of the actual megabit to kilobit conversion, i.e. 7Mbps = 7168Kbps. Not like ACS where 1Mbps = 1000Kbps, which all you ever see is in the ballpark of 920Kbps statewide based on the average speedtests from ACS here on DSLR.
So if some n00b wants to come in here and try to throw his weight at me, saying I'm in seattle, when he doesn't even look at my profile and assumes that the server I am testing to from speedtest.net is where I live, and saying all kinds of other retarded inane babble, thats fine, but just don't cry on your way out the door.
You can even see my ISP in that speedtest that is in my sig on the first post in this thread. What does it say? Something along the lines of "ACSG-1". Why does it say that? Because I am on ACS's G sector, which is the Kenai Peninsula, subsection 1 which is the CO I am connected to.
Please get an education....
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Want my opnion, see »....Sucks
My Babies: Intel D865PERL, P4 3.2Ghz, 1024MB DDR, XFX 6800 Ultra, XP Pro. - eMac 1.25Ghz G4, 512MB DDR, SuperDrive. HP dv6000 lappy, 1.66Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR2. Total HDD cap. 1.5TB | |
koolman2
Premium
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK
·GCI.net
4 edits | reply to RavenMill
My GCI connection kicks your ACS connection's ass.
By the way, McLovin  LIVES in Alaska. I can personally say that I've met him, his car isn't a rental, and it has Alaska tags. I guess he fact that his profile places him in Kenai slipped by with your proud sense of a crappy ISP? Get a clue.
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There's no place like ::1. | |
McLovin
Chicka chicka yeah
Premium
join:2005-06-12
Fairbanks, AK
clubs: | Just so we are clear. 7Mbps is NOT GCI's fastest internet tier. It goes another 3Mbps above that to 10Mbps, though it does cost 10 more bucks than ACS's 3Mbps package. | |
McLovin
Chicka chicka yeah
Premium
join:2005-06-12
Fairbanks, AK
clubs:
·GCI.net
·PTIAlaska.NET
| reply to RavenMill
said by RavenMill :If ya wanna see my connection from Fairbanks to Seattle: nice 132ms ping also. So you have 1.5Mb up and down eh? Looks to me like you are a bit shy of that mark. You should be getting 1536/1536. You are quite a long ways off.
BUT...If you look at koolman2 's connection. He is supposed to be receiving 7168/384 - in other words, a hell of a lot closer to his advertised speeds than you are. How much does his connection cost you ask? Why, that's just $69.99/mo. Shocking, isn't it?
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Want my opnion, see »....Sucks
My Babies: Intel D865PERL, P4 3.2Ghz, 1024MB DDR, XFX 6800 Ultra, XP Pro. - eMac 1.25Ghz G4, 512MB DDR, SuperDrive. HP dv6000 lappy, 1.66Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR2. Total HDD cap. 1.5TB | |
koolman2
Premium
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK | *sigh* ^he made me
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There's no place like ::1. | |
TechTak
join:2007-08-28
Anchorage, AK
| reply to McLovin
said by McLovin :ACS's fastest package they offer currently (which is only available in Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks) is 3Mbps/512Kbps for Residential service. Not sure where you got that information. I have 4m/512k here at my house. Had it for 3 years.
Granted, the guy obviously overlooked where you were at.
One thing people don't seem to realize is that VERY few people use DSLR. So using it as a form of reference as to the common speed on a small ISP like ACS is a bit pointless.
Another thing to consider... GCI gets it's bandwidth from ACS' pipe to Alaska. They lease it and sell it at a higher rate. (ACS owns the one pipe coming up to Alaska.)
Anyone who plays games online is going to want the DSL over GCI, considering the up-width. (Upload speed makes a HUGE difference in gaming...especially if you're hosting the game.) So, koolman2, your 362 up is horrid compared to her 1168.
I do have to agree that GCI in Alaska is down a lot more than ACS, for whatever reasons. They lost all of their dns DBs a couple weeks ago and a week or so before that they were completely down in Fairbanks for 2 days. I also have only been completely down for more than an hour or two one time.
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You're absolutely correct, Senator Stevens. The internet is NOT a dumptruck. I couldn't have said it any better myself. Now it's time for your medication... | |
McLovin
Chicka chicka yeah
Premium
join:2005-06-12
Fairbanks, AK
clubs:
·GCI.net
·PTIAlaska.NET
| I do not have a clue where you get your information from, but let me shed some light on it if I may. GCI does NOT get its bandwidth from ACS. ACS has ONE OC3 coming to Alaska leased from Sprint, which also comes up via land, hence all of the hops. GCI has 3 undersea OC48 fiber lines which is leased from Level3 ( koolman2 may have to correct me on that.)
As far as gaming goes. ACS's ping is ridiculous in comparison to cable. The bandwidth itself doesn't matter too much just because gaming isn't a high bandwidth operation, just fast packets. Pings from ACS as you can see from the previous tests in this forum, RavenMill 's test yielded a 132ms ping via ACS DSL. koolman2 's ping was 45ms, almost half as high.
Also, how did you get on that speed tier? And how much do you pay? I know that tier is not advertised. ACS just started offering 3Mbps/512Kbps about 2 months ago for $89/mo. bundled with phone and all of that other jazz.
But yeah, as far as infrastructure goes, GCI owns ACS. | |
koolman2
Premium
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK
·GCI.net
| reply to TechTak
I've known that 4 Mbps has been available to businesses for a while (the speeds were listed on their site at one time), but there was an extreme premium to pay for it.
As for GCI buying bandwidth from ACS... Wow. I'm not even going to comment there. Actually, I am. Remember several years back when GCI was advertising that the future is here? Yeah? Well, that's when they built their own fiber optic cable to Alaska. Don't remember? Ah, well, it's okay. Want to compare tracert's? If your information is correct (which it most certainly is NOT), then a lot of the hops to any site in the lower 48 will be the same. They are not.
Upload in games doesn't matter unless you're hosting. Don't believe me? Play a game in a window sometime and watch your network utilization. On a 100 Mbps ethernet connection, you'll never see it go above 0.15, or roughly 150 kbps, and that's in an extremely active game. Ping time is what it's really all about, in which ACS DSL sucks because they refuse to put anybody on fastpath, even if you ask nicely.
In my experience (I've had both services in the last several years), GCI is less reliable, but any time GCI goes down, it's never for more than half an hour, and it's usually in the middle of the night. I've had roughly four of those outages in the last four years, while I had one in the three years we had DSL. I feel it's worth it to be able to download at almost 900 kBps - yes, kilobytes per second, or 7 Mbps.
Please stop trying to spread misinformation.
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There's no place like ::1. | |
McLovin
Chicka chicka yeah
Premium
join:2005-06-12
Fairbanks, AK
clubs:
·GCI.net
·PTIAlaska.NET
| said by koolman2 : I feel it's worth it to be able to download at almost 900 kBps - yes, kilobytes per second, or 7 Mbps. ......or 1.2MBps - yes, 1.2 megabytes per second. or 10Mbps | |
TechTak
join:2007-08-28
Anchorage, AK
| reply to koolman2
said by koolman2 :I've known that 4 Mbps has been available to businesses for a while (the speeds were listed on their site at one time), but there was an extreme premium to pay for it. *snip* Please stop trying to spread misinformation. What do you mean spread misinformation? You two are the ones saying they only have up to 3Mb/s and I'm sitting here in my bedroom with 4/512. No bandwidth cap. Static IP. Plus free dial up access for when I need it. (We travel to fairbanks a lot, so we actually use it. It costs me $99.95/mo with the phone/LongDist package. (GCI's "ultimate" package has the same stuff, only the bandwidth is 320/128Kbps, with a 3gb cap, PLUS a 14c/minute charge for dialup access in the state of Alaska. for ONLY $89.99! Oh wait, sorry about the bandwidth...I forgot, if you pay a bunch extra, you can get higher bandwidth.)
I don't know where you went to school for your networking classes, but PING time is DIRECTLY related to what your upload bandwidth is. i.e.: If I have 1m/512k bandwidth, my pingtime will generally be more than someone with 1m/1m...allowing for network traffic of course.
My ping time on ACS' DSL here is usually about 60ms or so. It goes up depending on what we're doing here. For instance, we run our own family website using MS Home Server. That will bring the ping time up when people are accessing it. It also brings it up when both of us are online at the same time.
Which reminds me...if you do a lot of gaming or downloading, DON'T get GCI cable unless you pay for the higher plans that let you past the cap. (That bandwidth cap is the MAIN reason I won't use GCI. We often go WAY over their 3, 5 or 10GB cap in the first few days, simply because of our website and my wife's downloading linux stuff.
Everyone has their preferences...I prefer to pay LESS for my higher upload bandwidth, no cap, static IP and dialup access...
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You're absolutely correct, Senator Stevens. The internet is NOT a dumptruck. I couldn't have said it any better myself. Now it's time for your medication... | |
koolman2
Premium
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK
·GCI.net
| Fact: The Ultimate Package comes with cable TV as well, which is $63 without the plan, making GCI's 320 plan $27.
Fact: ACS doesn't advertise anything above 3 Mbps/512 kbps.
Fact: Ping times are not affected much by upload speed (unless it's ridiculously slow, such as only a few kilobits per second). Between 512 and 1024 kbps upload, ping times will be unaffected.
It doesn't take long to transmit 32 B at 128 kbps. Between 128 and 10240 kbps, ping time might decrease by a few milliseconds.
I do a relatively generous amount of gaming on my 7168/384 kbps cable modem with a 20 GB cap, and I never go over the limit.
Fact: My ping time to Seattle is 40 ms, give or take.
Don't believe me? Here's my tracert to Google:
Pinging www.l.google.com [72.14.253.99] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 72.14.253.99: bytes=32 time=44ms TTL=239
Reply from 72.14.253.99: bytes=32 time=42ms TTL=239
Reply from 72.14.253.99: bytes=32 time=46ms TTL=239
Reply from 72.14.253.99: bytes=32 time=45ms TTL=239
Ping statistics for 72.14.253.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 42ms, Maximum = 46ms, Average = 44ms I guarantee yours is no faster, and most likely to be around 65 ms.
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There's no place like ::1. | |
TechTak
join:2007-08-28
Anchorage, AK
| said by koolman2 :Fact: My ping time to Seattle is 40 ms, give or take. Don't believe me? Here's my tracert to Google: Pinging www.l.google.com [72.14.253.99] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 72.14.253.99: bytes=32 time=44ms TTL=239 Reply from 72.14.253.99: bytes=32 time=42ms TTL=239 Reply from 72.14.253.99: bytes=32 time=46ms TTL=239 Reply from 72.14.253.99: bytes=32 time=45ms TTL=239 Ping statistics for 72.14.253.99: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 42ms, Maximum = 46ms, Average = 44ms I guarantee yours is no faster, and most likely to be around 65 ms. Actually, my ping time to google is at about 45-52ms average. (Depending on what else I'm doing at the time. Since our server is almost always doing something, I'll never get an accurate read from a web-based result. (I'll paste it if you like, but it's not like I couldn't type in whatever numbers I wanted to.))
Just for the benefit of those people new to this stuff who might be reading this thread, and for those who want to argue, I'll simply give you the link to DSLR's very own page on the diff between DSL and cable, where it states VERY plainly exactly what I've been saying. (I figure since you think that DSLR is some sort of professional bandwidth resource, (Those of us who work on networks for a living don't rely on DSLR, or any other web-based bandwidth meter) you have to take their word for it or everything you've used as a reference here is mute. (I don't, really, because it's just a cute web-based applet with no real determination of actual bandwidth, but simply because I know that the info on the page is correct compared to you saying that cable is better for gaming than dsl, that GCI's own site says that the number of people on the ISP isn't affected when you have cable (sorry, but that is one of the BIGGEST reasons people choose DSL over cable, the exact opposite is true. and that people who like cable internet more never want to admit that the lines degrade over time, the number of people watching TV even affects your bandwidth, it's subject to several signal degradations, (like radio interference) and that you are very wrong that your upload speed isn't important to gaming, serving the games OR clienting.)
As I said, the people who are reading and want the TRUTH about the differences should read the info on the following link. It's basic, and doesn't cover ALL the bases, but it gives a general idea...
»DSL FAQ »DSL vs CABLE?
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You're absolutely correct, Senator Stevens. The internet is NOT a dumptruck. I couldn't have said it any better myself. Now it's time for your medication... | |
koolman2
Premium
join:2002-10-01
Anchorage, AK
·GCI.net
2 edits | People watching TV degrades cable modem performance? Wow, that's a new one.
I'm sorry for any confusion, but I was talking strictly about GCI cable modem versus ACS DSL. When it comes to technical specifications and such, DSL is the better technology. However, GCI has excellent upkeep of their network (I can get my full 7 Mbps any time of the day), while ACS uses scare tactics to get customers and has comparatively slow and expensive service.
Both DSL and cable suffer from network congestion. DSL's happens at the DSLAM, while cable's happens at the cable plant. The only thing needed to do to alleviate it and make it a non-issue on cable is to create another channel and stick half of the subscribers on the new one.
You must be on fastpath, but the majority of DSL subscribers on ACS are put on interleave and experience higher ping times (usually about 20 ms higher).
At this point, I'm going to suggest that we agree to disagree and leave it at that.
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There's no place like ::1. | |
McLovin
Chicka chicka yeah
Premium
join:2005-06-12
Fairbanks, AK
clubs:
·GCI.net
·PTIAlaska.NET
1 edit | If he is on business class service, which he must be, otherwise he would be breaking his TOS with the web server, business class services are always put on fastpath. Plus PPPoE is residential only. Most of the business services are DHCP from ACS, plus you can customize the speed tier as you want it and they charge you and make an agreement.
I called ACS today to confirm this, they said that in Anchorage, Fairbanks or Juneau only can you do this. ACS highest speed they offer is 8Mbps/2Mbps SHDSL, with a distance limit of 7,000 feet. | |
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