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View Full Version : Testing a new broadband technology



Matt Meiser
12-18-2006, 10:22 PM
Since we moved to our house 3 years ago we've been surviving with Hugesnet/Direcway satellite internet. The service hasn't been nearly as good as the cable service we had at our previous house and I've been waiting for one of the three nearby cable provider, 2 nearby wireless internet, or Verizon to come to our immediate area.

A few weeks ago I noticed that Sprint had expanded their wireless broadband coverage in our area and showed that we were right on the edge of the covered area. So, I borrowed the demo EV-DO card from a local Sprint store this afternoon to try out. Right now the card is installed in my work laptop with its connection shared using Windows ICS. The performance is incredibly better than the satellite connection. The seat of the pants feeling is much better with minimal latency compared to the satellite connection. In side by side test to the same speed test site, I was getting between 600 and 1100kbs down and 120-140kbps up. Now for those of you with land based connections that may not sound very good, but with satellite, I was getting 1/2 of those numbers on the satellite. And uploading the attached pictures took only a couple seconds compared to my usual upload time of maybe 20 seconds in the past.

I also tried out VPN which actually worked and worked as well as any time I've used it from a hotel. And my wife tried out a Citrix connection to her work and found that it performed well enough that she could key in journal entries--before the lag made it so bad it was painful to use to even just look something up.

Needless to say we are signing a contract tomorrow to get our own card (with a 30-day money back guarantee.) If it works well in the long term test, we'll be cancelling our Hughesnet service. The monthly cost is the same as our satellite service so it won't save anything. Linksys makes a Sprint-approved router that hosts the PC card which I'll be ordering tomorrow as well.

Frank Hagan
12-18-2006, 11:20 PM
This is about $85 a month or so, right? (If I can be so nosy!)

I live in an area where I cannot get DSL, so I have cable, and the price just went up to $50 a month. I have to keep my dial up account at PeoplePC also because they do go down occasionally, and my little web hosting business can't be without a connection. Seems like a lot of dough to me, but there aren't any alternatives for us here (without going the more expensive satellite route).

Robert Boyd
12-19-2006, 12:53 AM
Matt,

Have them order you the Novatel Merlin S720. It is the best one on the market for Sprint. I use it everyday and it does pretty well.

Also download Skype and you can do away with the landline phone.

Keith Outten
12-19-2006, 4:29 AM
Good deal Matt,

I know the increase in speed is welcome. My sister just got Verizon fiber a few weeks ago and it is lightning fast. Can't wait for our turn as it would give us all the bandwidth SMC could use for a long time to come.

The blade for your Deere is nice, isn't it the one that you modified the hitch?

.

Matt Meiser
12-19-2006, 8:23 AM
Frank: We already have Sprint cell phones so it is going to be an additional $59.99/mo which is what we pay for Hughesnet now. Actually I get a discount on the Sprint service through work so it will be about 8% less.

Robert: The card I'm getting is the Novatel Merlin S720, which is what the demo card I have right now is. Luckily it is one of the ones supported by the Linksys router too. We'll have to keep our landline as our Tivo/DirecTV and our alarm monitoring use it.

Kieth: Yes, that is the blade I modified. Mechanically it turned out well, but the paint leaves something to be desired as I miscalculated and overthinned the paint. It will all be chipped and scratched up in a few months anyway though.

We have Verizon for our phone, but they don't even offer DSL in our exchange. Even if they did, we are so far out and the wiring is in such bad shape (their description of the wiring) that it wouldn't work if they did. They have trouble keeping our phone line working acceptably for voice calls. I don't anticipate they will spend the money to bury the fiber in our area any time in the near future. More likely is that a local phone/cable provider that serves several small towns in our area will become a competitive local exchange carrier and put in their fiber as they did in another nearby area.

Jim Becker
12-19-2006, 10:19 AM
Matt, that's good news that the Sprint service works well for you. The decrease in latency will be wonderful since you'll now be able to use the VPN service, etc.

Charles McKinley
12-20-2006, 12:22 AM
Hi Matt,

Great news for your connection. I live in a hole out in the sticks and can't get cell service at the house, grrrrrr. I may go for the datellite in the future just to get an improvement over dial-up.

Frank Hagan
12-20-2006, 1:36 PM
I'm surprised at the "add on" price being only about $60. That may be an option for us with our Cingular phones ... I'll have to check. Our new cable provider is Time-Warner, and they are known for their steadily increasing rates (they bumped ours up to $54 for the cable modem service just recently).

Good luck with the new service!

Matt Meiser
12-20-2006, 2:51 PM
Well UPS delivered the new router about an hour ago. I popped the card in the router, did the setup and we are up and running. As I expected it cleared up a few glitches that were occuring probably due to interactions Windows Internet Connection Sharing and the Trend firewall on my work laptop.