High Speed Internet Options

[CBuxton]

I'm looking for options for getting a business connected to the internet. DSL and cable services are both not available in my area. What other options do I have that are cost effective? Thanks!

 

[CTR]

ISDN or possibly IDSL.

 

[ktwebb]

Satellite is an option, although you will likely get replies to this post that discourage it. DirecPC was a viable option for the office I work in until we needed to host our own website. You upload through your analog modem, so that basically sux if you need to go upstream at all. The download speeds WERE pretty strong when we used it, which was almost a year ago. Things may have changed since then. 400Kb advertised but it was significantly quicker than that. We saw up to 80KB downloads on occasion, which winds up being close to twice as fast as the advertised rate. Again, that was along time ago, but it would seem to me that the performance would only have increased, as satellite subscribers switched to other broadband as it has become available. I am not endorsing it really, but it is an option you might look into.

 

[danzig]

I am in the same situation now - I give up on DSL and cable and got DIRECPC . It's not really that bad with consistent 60-70 KB downloads . Hughes apparently has more bandwidth available than they let on as my subscriptions to there TurboWebcast sees downloads at 190 KB . Gilat is supposed to have duplex satellite service available this fall . Good luck

 

[CBuxton]

ISDN is not available in my area either. It has been mentioned that frame relay is an option, but research into that has shown that it is WAY to cost prohibitive for me. Sattelite would work for a while, but we will be hosting our own website and email, so the slow uploads aren't going to do me much good. Any other ideas??

 

[jsm]

I'd say ISDN is your last alternative. Really, though - outside of California and the evil reach of PacBell, a T1 line is pretty cheap. my friend in Arizona was paying 400$ for a T1 while I was going to pay a little over a thousand a month - and I was getting a good deal.

With the per minute charges for each line connected on ISDN, the price adds up very quickly. I'd recommend stearing clear of it unless you are completely out of options.

 

[CTR]

Where do you live that ISDN is not available? That is absurd.

Who is the phone company?

 

[CBuxton]

I live in a small Iowa town. USWest is the phone company.

 

[ArkAoss]

yes as far as the sat goes i learned some thing interesting, my cuz has it and he was having trouble conecting to it for the summer. so the techs told him that sometimes its their proxy software, and it limits all the subscribers bandwidth down by IP, so they let him know of a few IP's he could use that wernt limited, that didnt fix it, when his mom remembered she hadnt payed the bill, that fixed the prob and they told him to go back to the limited ip's and he did (yeah frickin right) wink

 

[CTR]

Have you run their ISDN service ability search? It says it was updated 8/28.

http://www.uswest.com/products/data/isdn/isdn_slavailability.html

If it comes up that you don't have it available, then I would call them and ask them when it IS going to be available. And keep asking until you get an answer from somebody who knows. Remember to write down the names of the people you talk to, and you might even want to record your conversations with them, since they will lie about what they tell you. If you put enough pressure on them and get it escalated, then you can get results.

Really, USWest is the worst phone company in the US. They are hopelessly retarded so this ISDN snafu doesn't surprise me. Almost every telco, including the small rural ones, have ISDN capability in their CO.

 

[CBuxton]

Not available...darnit! But, in all seriousness, would an ISDN line give me the bandwidth to run a website and email, plus high speed downloads to the office? Isn't an ISDN only 128k?

 

[CTR]

128K is good! It is the minimum I would ever recommend for a mailserver, but it is okay for http. High speed downloads...well, depends on what you call "high speed."

If you don't have ISDN service in your area, then there is probably not an ISP that offers ISDN in your local calling area. So long distance charges would screw you.

I suggest you get a business loan, start your own ISP as a front (you might mention the words "dot-com" at the bank to get more money), get a T1 connection to UUNET, and keep all the bandwidth for yourself! By the time your loan runs out and you can't pay the bill anymore, maybe DSL will be available.

Who knows, you might even get bought out by a huge mega-corporation before you even go bankrupt!

 

[ktwebb]

No webserver on an ISDN line. Not one with any volume anyway, and if you are talking about a mailserver and browsing on your side with the same connection, no freakin way. If it an ecommerce site, a fractured T-1 would not be as prohibitive and a full T. You can get them down pretty low. The company I work for had a 256 fractured T-1 when I got here a few years ago. Full T-1 now since we host our own site and it has a fairly high volume E-commerce page.

 

[CBuxton]

Webserver will be low volume at first, but in the near future it will be gaining some use as clients will be able to log onto the site and a database to check account status, etc, etc. Email traffic won't be too bad with only 10 users, but as they realize the speed and capabilities I can see the usage increasing quite a bit. Downloads will be the largest parts of the deal. The line will be used to download rather large databases. I was hoping to get a 768kb/sec DSL which I could increase in speed if the need appears, but I don't think it's going to happen. I'm supposed to have this in place by December, but am getting very frustrated at the lack of options. Nobody has a timeline as to when anything will be available either. USWest says DSL in 2001. Thanks for the help...USWest = SUCK!

 

[danzig]

The Gilat satellite system coming out this fall is "supposed" to be approxmate 500k down 400k up . ISP will probably be MSN though

 

[CBuxton]

Links to anymore information?

 

[bmg]

The one downside I can see to satellites is due to the approximately 50,000 mile round trip up and back. This will cause around a 250ms+ ping time. Not the greatest for online gaming but not a problem otherwise. That's actually the case for one-way rf. For 2 way rf the number would be twice this: up to the satellite from you and then down ultimately getting to the site you want to access, then eventually back up to the satellite and then back down to you. 186,000 miles takes a second so you're 500ms+ with 2 way rf.