Why am I still connecting at 28.8?

[schoolsucks]

I am accessing the web through my parents house, and can't ever seem to go over 28.8. This area cannot get DSL, and the cable service is known for its outages. But the question is, why am I still connecting at such a slow speed? Why won't the telephone company upgrade over here? Does it have something to do with being a low income neighbourhood? If anyone cares to know, I am in the Northwest part of Houston.

 

[Scrapster]

This area cannot get DSL, and the cable service is known for its outages. But the question is, why am I still connecting at such a slow speed?

Because you live in the boonies.

 

[Noirish]

maybe they don't have money to deal w/ low income areas first.
maybe the population there isn't a lot.
maybe not a lot of people use internet in your area.
maybe, maybe.

 

[Electric Amish]

Has everything to do with your phone lines. They are probably noisy.

amish

 

[Charley]

There are tweaks to help with connection speeds. Is your modem V90? I never connected lower than 48000 with my old Zoltrix, but now have DSL *thanks the God of the internet*.

 

[schoolsucks]

But we pay the same local call rate as those rich areas. So equal fee, equal service. Seems like the poor are getting their ass raped.

 

[reitz]

Regardless of the upgrades that the phone company may perform, they're sill unlikely to connect any faster than 28.8.

<< This area cannot get DSL >>

If the reason DSL is not available is due to the distance from your parents' house to the phone company's CO, then it won't be available until the technology improves. DSL is limited to a line distance of 18,000 feet from the CO. V90 suffers from the same limitations (though I think it might be slightly further than the limit for DSL). Most likely, your parents simply live too far away in order to acheive a connection speed any faster than 28.8.

 

[perry]

Do they only have a 28.8 modem?

-- Mr. Obvious

 

[LadyNiniane]

<< I am accessing the web through my parents house, and can't ever seem to go over 28.8. This area cannot get DSL, and the cable service is known for its outages. But the question is, why am I still connecting at such a slow speed? Why won't the telephone company upgrade over here? Does it have something to do with being a low income neighbourhood? If anyone cares to know, I am in the Northwest part of Houston. >>



It has very little to do with your neighborhood, except for the likelihood that you are part of SBC - and that has everything to do with it.

We live in what is usually described as an &quot;upscale&quot; neighborhood, but SBC has been giving us the same song and dance for years - &quot;Sorry, the squirrels got into the lines; we can clean it up but only to 9.6 fax standards.&quot; &quot;Sorry, you're too far away from the switch and can't get DSL.&quot; &quot;We have no current plans to upgrade the switch in your area at this time.&quot; &quot;We'd upgrade the switch, but we want to put it in a big ugly cement-block building right next to your neighborhood ball fields, and oh, BTW, we will need 24/7 access to it, so you can't schedule any activities that would conflict with our access.&quot; :|

Then AT&amp;T finally got permission to offer local phone service in our neighborhood. In two months, they acquired 60% of the local service in my subdivision.

Suddenly SBC is offering a redesigned underground bunker setup for that &quot;upgraded switch&quot; (something they claimed would not be suitable when the city council told them no to their original easement request), and they're sending us &quot;Please come back - we miss you, and we're sure that you'll miss us&quot; letters (yeah, right), and they're being oh-so-cooperative.

And I switched the minute AT&amp;T showed up, and have no intention of going back.

And I'm getting consistent 49kb and higher dial-up connections on all systems for the first time, when the best I could manage was 33.6 on a USR V.90 modem (and usually 19.2 on the Winmodems in the house).

Lady Niniane