Wireless Internet Access Problems

[ronbo613]

I live in a rural area and there are two kinds of ISPs; bad and horrible. Because there is usually only one option, service is bad and customer service is non-existent after the initial installation.
Anyway, I'm on wireless internet access with a dish antenna. At 7:30AM, I get over 3 Mbps download speed, at 7:30PM, I'm lucky to get 1 Mbps download speed. Personally, I think the problem is too many people on the network, probably streaming Netflix movies that are clogging the system. I don't think I should be paying for 3 Mbps service when half the day I don't even get 1.5 Mbps. Do you think it's fair to ask the ISP to only charge me for 1.5 Mbps instead of 3 Mbps(about $10/month difference)?
What really sucks is that my friend; a mile and a half away, gets 10 Mbps service for less than I would pay for 1.5 Mbps.

 

[VirtualLarry]

No, because with ISPs, and I'm pretty certain yours is similar, you pay for "up to" speeds. There is no SLA (service level agreement) with consumer ISPs - no guaranteed bandwidth.

I think that you should consider yourself lucky to even have 1Mbit/sec, if you live that far out in the sticks that you have to resort to a WISP.

 

[ronbo613]

There is no SLA (service level agreement) with consumer ISPs - no guaranteed bandwidth.

You're right about that. Seems unfair for ISPs to advertise a level of service, then in the contract fine print you find out they are not obligated to provide the service they sell you.

I think that you should consider yourself lucky to even have 1Mbit/sec, if you live that far out in the sticks that you have to resort to a WISP.

I don't really live too far "out in the sticks", there isn't any broadband service. Like I said, a mile and a half away, 10 Mbps service is available for about half of what I'm paying for .5-3 Mbps service(depending on the time of day). The population is fairly spread out and ISPs and telco companies in this area don't see a huge profit margin in providing service, so they don't improve the system, concentrating on selling access, adding more users to the network and slowing things down.
It is a real economic detriment to the area to not be able to have reliable internet and telephone service. With a 12-16% unemployment rate, plummeting real estate values and businesses closing left and right, it is going to be tough for this area to recover financially when there is no fundamental infrastructure for startup business.
Guess I will have to settle down and lower my standards(again).

 

[Rackmountsales]

Sometimes wireless internet connection problems can be as simple as not manually connecting to the network. Go into your computer’s control panel and select network connections. If you right-click on the network, you’ll see an option for properties. Select this and then find the tab for wireless networks, from there, go to the advanced tab and click the button alongside where it says any available network. Below this you should see another box labeled automatically connect to non-preferred networks. Check this box, then press ok and you should automatically be able to connect to the nearest available wireless Internet connection every time.