Broadband Wireless Internet @ over 5 Mbs for $39.95/month!

[Rainguy]

OK, I know this posted posted awhile back but, since it is now more readily available, I figured I let you all know my experience after installation of Sprints new Wireless Broadband.
Sprint Broadband details here

I had a painless install today and hooked up their modem up to a Linksys 4 port router/switch. They installed about a 2 1/2 foot square "dish" (transceiver) on a pole about 28 foot tall. Now get this...my downloads speeds measured at 5.03 Mbs! I mean this is unreal. I setup routers for customers using DSL and Roadrunner cable and this blows it away. Uploads are 256 kbs. Needless to say...I am very impressed

I also installed one of the new Linksys 11 Mbs Wireless PC cards on my laptop and installed the Linksys Wireless Access Point to one of the ports on the router/switch. I am now surfing the net on my family room couch with NO cables attached. I went from wireless internet to my home to a high-speed wireless transmission to my laptop. This is just too frickin' cool!

Anyway, I had just signed up for the MCI Amazon GC deal a little bit ago and since there was no contract on that I switched to Sprint Long Distance @ $0.07/minute anytime with no monthly fee and that brings the cost from $49.95/month to $39.95/month. You can always still use your 10-10 numbers for $0.05/minute instead. I signed up for 2 years so the equipment charge was $99 and the installation right now is FREE. Check out the link to see if it is available in your area.

I think this is a VERY HOT DEAL!

 

What are your ping times?
Ive heard that the latency on wireless connections make it useless for gaming and such.

How are your pings doing?

 

[Time2Kill]

Pings should be pretty good on this, I would say around 50-80ms on a good server, but I am just guessing. The ping times on satelite based systems (Direcpc etc) are so bad because the signal travels to a satelite out in space, then to you. This is coming from a tower on the ground that you have to be within 35 miles for it to work...

 

[HKSturboKID]

r u talking about the sprint ION dsl? Too bad they don't have it in my area yet.

 

[Souka]

At home, on my company laptop that I am testing, using a Symbol Access point and PCMCIA card, I sometimes play some Counter-strike....pings are in the 30's-80's depending on what server I connect to.

Of course, I'm "wired" to DSL....but wireless in the home.....


Good question however....what are the pings using that Sprint dish?


Edit: I looked at their availabilty website....pretty lame because you can only put in your zip-code..... They really need a general map showing coverage, or at least a listing of Zipcodes...something!!!!

 

[Rainguy]

I don't online game so give me a couple of servers to ping.

A reverse traceroute from a premium newserver in Chicago was 73 ms.

 

[Yzzim]

5 Mbps???????????????

My cable is 100/500Kbps
I download about 50KBps

Wireless internet can't be half the speed of a 10Mbit LAN

 

[Rainguy]

Ah, yes it can (on the download) check the specs for the service. This is a max #

 

[ahofle]

Before anyone runs to the phone and signs up for this service, let me say that the speeds Rainguy gets are extremely abnormal. CHeck the dslreports.com forums (they have one for Sprint BBD) and see all the complaints. Downloads for me have ranged anywhere from 100Kbits/sec to 3700 Kbits/sec on my fully tweaked setup. During the evening when everyone is using the service, I almost never even come close to 1Mbit/sec, usually around 100Kbps. Uploads are PITIFUL!! I have yet to top 70 Kbits/sec, usually averaging something around 1-2Kbits/sec. Yes, that is LOWER than a modem. It really depends on which sector Sprint puts you in and how oversold the service is in your area. My guess is Rainguy will not see those speeds for long.

About gaming, forget about it. While I ping some servers around 100ms in Gamespy, the pings and tracert results are very erratic. During gameplay (Quake 2), I see spikes and lots of lost/incomplete packets. Ping ranges from 150ms to 700ms or more. Theoretically it should work well, but my understanding is that Sprint has a poorly designed 'round-robin' algorithm for uploads in which every user must take turns sending packets. In overcrowded areas, the results are terrible.

If you have cable or DSL, consider yourself lucky, especially if you are into gaming.

Andy

 

[jwootang]

I have a similar service through AT&T. AT&T Digital Broadband. I have basic phone service and Internet bundled together for $49.99/month. I think right now it is only offered here in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, Anchorage, AK, and somewhere in CA. The technician who installed it said they would be offering the service in Oklahoma City this summer.

I don't get quite the speeds that were mentioned above. I can download at about 30kbps/second. Not complaining though. The technology is the same as the sprint service, although maybe on different frequencies.

www.iatt.com

NO, neither DSL or Cable (internet) access are offered at my address.

 

[jwootang]

Forgot to mention:
This month they had free install and free hardware. For a NIC they use the Intel Anypoint system. The one they gave me was the PCI 1 Mbps model.

Question:
Does anyone know if I could get higher speeds if I got the 10Mbps model instead??
I would really like to know.

 

[jonnyfin]

I've had this service for the past 4 mos. in phx,az. it worked great after re-imaging my machine...netsonic and the like will really screw you up. they advertise 5mbps down, I generally get 300-400k down from good sites, and less from lesser sites. definitely worth the $40/month...buddy of mine spends $60 for @home including modem rental...etc

 

[Time2Kill]

Also, about the 5 Mbps, that is about 450KBps.

When companies advertise stuff like this they usually advertise it at 5Mbps(mega bits) and is not the same as 5MBps(mega bytes)...as you can see a big difference!

 

[Rainguy]

Well, I have no other choices to my home. No cable here, DSL is out of range, and satellite is overpriced and nowhere near as fast. It just rolled out in our area and I am one of the first to get it here (Central FL/East Coast). Maybe the hardware is updated some I don't know but...it is fast. And you figure that on average it costs $20 for a slow 56K modem connection...hell I'll pay double anyday for this kind of speed. Just got rid of ISDN at my home that was costing between $125-200/month. So it was a no-brainer

 

[klix]

2.4ghz amplified, nothing special, cept its a nice amp to do 5mbps @ 35 miles, which i doubt will hold true, i only know of being able to do 2mbps @ ~30, latency is not bad with 2.4ghz to your ap/bridge will probably be no more then 30ms, iv tested 2mbps @ ~7 miles away w/ 9ms latency, cool that sprint is offering this, it is an affordable option, unfortunatly its not in alot of places, and im sure the old rule, line of sight still applys, so if your region is mountanous, you can probably forget about it if your any distance from the tower, 2.4ghz is cheap, specialy for corperations of this size, someday it will be on every radio station tower around, also the word is that the fcc will be releasing 3ghz to the public soon =) mm yummy

I take that back sprint has registered a frequency with the fcc, but same theory behind it all

later klix

 

[M O M O]

jonnyfin--- Your figures are wrong for cox@home in phx.. is 24.95 for service and 15 for modem rental.. Does not equal $60. And Sprint wireless broadband does suck ass for online gaming. Its great if thats all you can get, but you would have better ping using 56k.

 

[kw3i]

if those things transmit at 2.4 gighz would it be possible to hook up the base of a 2.4ghz fone to the satellite and connect a heavy duty antenna to a 2.4ghz fone and get it to work within a few miles radius? that would be dope to be able to carry my home fone down to the video store and stop by the pizza parlor. plus i could get rid of my cell fone. hehe just a dum idea.

 

[spreee02]

Just got this service 2 weeks ago. Downloads are VERY eratic! Sometimes downloads are super-fast while other times it seems as if the servers are all down. And uploads are very very very slow. 1-2kbps about 75% of the time for me.

ONLY get this service if u know of people who live close to u that have also signed up for Sprint Broadband and have good download/upload speeds. Otherwise you will get stuck in a bad sector and have very inconsistant speeds.

ONLY reason I got this was because DSL and cable were not available in my neighborhood. Otherwise stay away!

 

[jonnyfin]

Thanks for correcting me MOMO, i'm now regretting that I didn't make him take a polygraph when he told me that

 

[johnjk]

Tell me more about that wireless nic for your laptop. I've been looking for something like that. You just plug it into your hub and the card into your laptop and go huh? Is it expensive? Thanks.

 

[TBP]

jwootang

I'm too using AT&T @Home in DFW area and my average download speed is about 200 KByte/s. Should I consider myself lucky or should you talk to @HOME about this? I know it depends on the user density of the area, but looks like we have a lot difference in speed.

 

[Rainguy]

johnjk, I bought both the Linksys Access Point and the Linksys Wireless NIC from buy.com using (2) $30 off coupons. I think the nic was $109 and the Access Point $212. Very well worth it for me being able to high speed surf in bed with no cables attached. Even though the Linksys says fair to poor on the signal strength/quatlity ( on the software meter)on the opposite end of a large house with many walls and 2.4 Ghz phones, I saw no difference on how fast the pages were loading. In an adjacent room (family room, kitchen), it measured good to excellent quality/strength. It's a great setup and I recommend it. I'll report again in 30 days on how the downloads average and the max on the upload speeds.

BTW, yes you run a CAT5 jumper from the access point to the router/switch and configure via a USB cable that is included, or SNMP (my preference and choice). You have to cofigure the PC card and access point to the same RF channel and as an "Infrastructure" setup if you are planning on sharing wireless and wired systems on the router/switch ( I have 3 wired systems in my home and the wireless Toshiba notebook). Really not as hard as it sounds

 

[Lars]

i get 8.16 mbps with my cable modem

 

[Nutzo]

I used to get over 600 KBytes (yes that's bytes!) on downloads with my cable modem (Cox & @home) a couple years ago when I first had it installed. but it has gotten slower & they capped the max speed. Problem used to be finding a fast enough site to download from to do the test.

However, now the best I can get is 300 KBytes, with 200 KBytes more common. Uploads are about 40 Kbytes.

 

[jwootang]

tbp,
I don't have @Home. I have Digital Broadband. Totally different. Mine is wireless. Yours is cable if it is @home.