Internet Service Providers - What to Do With Limited Options

mozz · Post by **mozz** » Mon. Aug. 17, 2015 6:55 am

If you have DSL, be sure the phone lines in the house are in good shape, less splices the better. I ran cat6 cable to all the lines in the house.

titleist1 · Post by **titleist1** » Mon. Aug. 17, 2015 12:41 pm

Good point by mozz on the quality of the wires....also check the connector cable between the phone jack and modem.

Our connection got slower over time and I ran a direct line from the modem phone jack to the network interface outside and it improved our link speed. I also replaced a connector cable once and had improved performance.

It may be easy to test if you have a standard network interface outside because they have a jack connector you can plug into.

Keepaeyeonit · Post by **Keepaeyeonit** » Mon. Aug. 17, 2015 3:40 pm

Dam Smitty how the hell do you surf the web at that speed

, thats almost going back to the dial up days

.I don't have the fastest service out there but It's good for living in the country.

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Post by **Lightning** » Mon. Aug. 17, 2015 5:42 pm

Dam... must be nice being able to stream *censored* in high definition.

rberq · Post by **rberq** » Mon. Aug. 17, 2015 6:35 pm

SMITTY wrote:For some reason, it's not available at my address. I watched them string the line to my pole in '04, then just last summer, they strung it the rest of the way up to the neighbor's. I might have to call them tomorrow

CALL THEM? NOT! We have Time Warner cable in this area. I have found it absolutely useless to call them, because I get some morons 2,000 miles away and they aren’t even sure Maine is part of the USA, and whatever they say they will do does not happen. There is a local office about 10 miles away, and if I drive there and walk in the door I get excellent service.
My brother called and they scheduled cable installation for him, so he dropped his land line and DSL and got a cell phone, anticipating cable internet. Come installation day they realized they didn’t have a cable running on his road, tough luck, no chance, check back in a few years.

davidmcbeth3 · Post by **davidmcbeth3** » Mon. Aug. 17, 2015 6:58 pm

rberq wrote: CALL THEM? NOT! We have Time Warner cable in this area. I have found it absolutely useless to call them, because I get some morons 2,000 miles away and they aren’t even sure Maine is part of the USA, and whatever they say they will do does not happen. There is a local office about 10 miles away, and if I drive there and walk in the door I get excellent service.
My brother called and they scheduled cable installation for him, so he dropped his land line and DSL and got a cell phone, anticipating cable internet. Come installation day they realized they didn’t have a cable running on his road, tough luck, no chance, check back in a few years.

Happens all the time. never drop service until you have new service is the game to play. I had ATT say that they had dsl service ... oops, come near installation day, same thing.

SMITTY · Post by **SMITTY** » Mon. Aug. 17, 2015 11:57 pm

Geesh Keepa - your upload speed is DOUBLE my current download speed!!

Yeah, I've been dealing with this for WAAAAAAAAY too long.

Good news though! I called Charter, and although I had a difficult time understanding the ethnic person on the other end, I was able to confirm that the cable I watched go up last year did indeed carry internet service, and the website was indeed wrong. SWEET!! So for FIVE DOLLARS more per month than I'm currently paying, I will get 20x faster internet speed. I just have to pay a one-time $30 fee, since there has never been cable in my home. They'll have to string it from the pole and run it through the house - that should be fun with 9 ton of coal down the basement ...

$40 a month - was a no-brainer!!

Last time I called they told me I had to pay like $80 a month plus $110 for installation. I hung up after that. That was 6-8 years ago - can't remember exactly.

I'll let you all know how this all goes down after they get here. I know how these things go. They run out of parts, don't have enough cable .... you've got too much coal in your basement ....

rberq · Post by **rberq** » Tue. Aug. 18, 2015 11:36 am

That's good news, Smitty. Just heed the above warnings about keeping your old service until the new is up and running.

That phone guy in India won't be much help if the local tech can't complete the job.

davidmcbeth3 · Post by **davidmcbeth3** » Tue. Aug. 18, 2015 2:31 pm

SMITTY wrote:Geesh Keepa - your upload speed is DOUBLE my current download speed!! Yeah, I've been dealing with this for WAAAAAAAAY too long.

Good news though! I called Charter, and although I had a difficult time understanding the ethnic person on the other end, I was able to confirm that the cable I watched go up last year did indeed carry internet service, and the website was indeed wrong. SWEET!! So for FIVE DOLLARS more per month than I'm currently paying, I will get 20x faster internet speed. I just have to pay a one-time $30 fee, since there has never been cable in my home. They'll have to string it from the pole and run it through the house - that should be fun with 9 ton of coal down the basement ...

<snip>

Hey, make them move your coal around to where you want it while they are there ! LOL

Some good news. Now you can get the horrible news on the web 20x faster ! Hooray !

I always sit at the front row of the movie theater just so I see the movie first .... so I understand.

You'll be all like:

Post by **Rob R.** » Tue. Aug. 18, 2015 2:48 pm

Nice!

Next you will be switching to an antenna & Netflix, bye bye Dish.

hotblast1357 · Post by **hotblast1357** » Tue. Aug. 18, 2015 5:21 pm

That is exactly what I'm doing! Directv contract ends next month so I'm canceling it and going with charter hi speed internet for Hal the price, and will just watch stuff through the tv as my monitor.

SMITTY · Post by **SMITTY** » Tue. Aug. 18, 2015 8:19 pm

Yeah my brother had mentioned Netflix. Not sure I really understand what the hell it is, lol - I thought it was just all movies, but I guess there's TV series type shows on there too.

I love Dish - had it since the day we moved in. Best customer service of any company I've ever had to deal with. But when push comes to shove over $$$, if I can save $83 a month, it's gonzo.

Post by **Rob R.** » Tue. Aug. 18, 2015 8:22 pm

I am watching "WWII in HD" on Netflix. There is a lot of good documentaries.

SMITTY · Post by **SMITTY** » Tue. Aug. 18, 2015 8:34 pm

Nice - I caught bits and pieces of that, I think on the History Channel. Not in HD though. I still have a 27" CRT televison ...

rberq · Post by **rberq** » Tue. Aug. 18, 2015 9:02 pm

SMITTY wrote:I love Dish - had it since the day we moved in. Best customer service of any company I've ever had to deal with. But when push comes to shove over $$$, if I can save $83 a month, it's gonzo.

Call the Dish people and tell them that, see what they can do for you. I bet they can do something, but probably not $83 worth of something.