T1 Availability?

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 12:00 am

I've been all over the web the past couple of days trying to figure something out.. I can't get DSL.. I can't get Cable.. I can get, and have, Satellite. It sucks ass. It's "ok" in general for web browsing and what not, but the bandwidth limitation is killing me.. And don't go over the limit, or you might as well not even use it.. Dial-up is faster. Because of this, I've kept the internet at my 2nd home, which I ONLY use for downloading things that I don't want to download here because of my bandwidth limitations. If I could get something without the limitations and be just as fast as this is now, I'd drop it as well as the TV there and that would "save" me $140 a month. So i could take that $140 and the $70 I'm spending now and that's $210. Well, I could also drop the AT&T land lines here and get Vonage which would save another $30 a month, so that's $240.. I've seen Speakeasy advertising T1s for $259 a month. I'd be willing to pay that extra $20 for reliable, fast, no latency internet.. Anybody know if there are any limitations on "where" you can get a T1? I have one of the grey phone boxes in my front yard (The tall skinny ones, not the big huge ones). If anybody has any info on this, I'd appreciate it. I'd call around, but don't feel like being on the phone on the weekend, I'll call this week if I don't find anything else out lol

TIA!

eGo

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 8:05 am

Don't know about T1 but a lot of the seriously rural areas around here are now advertising wireless broadband. Sprint and the other telcos finally realized that you can toss those on cell towers....haven't heard any reports as to bandwidth, etc. worth a look.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 9:41 am

If you can't get DSL I doubt you can get a T1. A T1 is run over fiber to your neighborhood phone switch. If your phone switch box doesn't support DSL then it's not digital and it's not going to support a T1.

Not to mention that a T1 is hideously expensive. Last I checked $500 a month around here. It's not that it's fast - it really isn't all that fast - but you have a full pipe to the Internet with no filters, and no bandwidth caps in either direction (your upload is the same speed as your download).

Are you SURE you can't get DSL or cable? In rural areas like where I live, sometimes it just takes escalating it (nicely) with someone higher in the food chain. For example there is no DSL in my neighborhood because the phone switch is not digital, but they do have cable. Some people on rural (unpaved) roads here were told they couldn't get cable because Comcast didn't want to pay to run the poles out their way. So they got their neighbors together and agreed to pickup part of the cost of running the cable.

Ask around town at local mom & pop computer stores for alternatives like that.

Have you looked into using an air card with a cell phone company? Do you get a good cell signal where you're at? Get a USB air card with a USB extension and tape it to the window for the best reception. Bandwidth will be better than cable, although you'll still have a cap (most carriers limit you to 5Gb a month). Not cheap at $60 a month or so, but if you were thinking about paying for a T1...

In rural areas like where I live there is also sometimes line-of-site microwave. Someone puts a station up on a tall structure (cell tower or water tower) and you get your Internet through a small dish but it's not satelite. You aim your dish at the antenna on the tall structure. We have one of those in Ocala Florida and they're also popular in the Rockies.

Ask the local mom & pop PC stores if they've heard of any alternatives like that.

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 9:43 am

Yah, we've got one guy that offers wireless, but my neighbor has about 10 BOF oak trees that are preventing me from pulling that one off. ;\ And I like trees and would never ask her to cut or trim them in any way. He told me a couple of months ago that in a week (as in like 7 weeks ago) he was going to be hanging some hardware somewhere else on the lake that would allow our whole lake to have access, so far that's does not appear to have been fruitful or he just doesn't feel like writing me back. Either way, I'm getting tired of waiting for him. He would be much cheaper than a T1, but I'm just sick of this crap I have now and want out lol Thanks for the idea though.

eGo

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 9:57 am

FlyingPenguin wrote:If you can't get DSL I doubt you can get a T1. A T1 is run over fiber to your neighborhood phone switch. If your phone switch box doesn't support DSL then it's not digital and it's not going to support a T1.

Not to mention that a T1 is hideously expensive. Last I checked $500 a month around here. It's not that it's fast - it really isn't all that fast - but you have a full pipe to the Internet with no filters, and no bandwidth caps in either direction (your upload is the same speed as your download).

Are you SURE you can't get DSL or cable? In rural areas like where I live, sometimes it just takes escalating it (nicely) with someone higher in the food chain. For example there is no DSL in my neighborhood because the phone switch is not digital, but they do have cable. Some people on rural (unpaved) roads here were told they couldn't get cable because Comcast didn't want to pay to run the poles out their way. So they got their neighbors together and agreed to pickup part of the cost of running the cable.

Ask around town at local mom & pop computer stores for alternatives like that.

Have you looked into using an air card with a cell phone company? Do you get a good cell signal where you're at? Get a USB air card with a USB extension and tape it to the window for the best reception. Bandwidth will be better than cable, although you'll still have a cap (most carriers limit you to 5Gb a month). Not cheap at $60 a month or so, but if you were thinking about paying for a T1...

In rural areas like where I live there is also sometimes line-of-site microwave. Someone puts a station up on a tall structure (cell tower or water tower) and you get your Internet through a small dish but it's not satelite. You aim your dish at the antenna on the tall structure. We have one of those in Ocala Florida and they're also popular in the Rockies.

Ask the local mom & pop PC stores if they've heard of any alternatives like that.

heh.. Yah.. Local? The closest computer store that's worth it's salt is 35 miles away. I live on a lake that has about 60-100 houses on it and some of the adjoining river. We are literally in BFE. When my mother first moved out here, about 60% of the homes here were just camps. Nobody lived in them full time. In the past coulpe of years that number has probably decreased to about 30%. I know we can't get DSL or Cable, I (and at least 10 of my neighbors) have called countless times trying to find something. Cell phone reception out here is also, the pits. If I stand in my driveway and hop on one leg facing east on a cloud free day, I might get 1 bar. I always thought that T1s had been around since the 50s? And that it was just a bunch of phone lines bonded together? Weren't they just originally used for voice and then later on in the 80s they discovered they could be used to send data at faster rates? Or something like that? I'm trying to make a map on google maps to show you just how far away from anything we really are.. I don't think it's the fact that we're so far, I think it's the fact that there's NOTHING between us and the local town or village that does have both cable and DSL.

I'll post a map when I get it figured out.

eGo

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 10:07 am

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 11:51 am

I think you're thinking of a Frame Relay. It's an option I looked into when I couldn't get any broadband at my ranch the first year I lived here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_relay

Might be your only viable alternative, and it may not cost much more than an air card account.

You could also ask your dialup ISP if they support modem bonding. Earthlink used to support it and I would think they still do. I used it for a year here (1999) at the ranch before they finally put cable in my neighborhood.

http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/ ... 33,00.html

I used 2 phone lines and 2 dial up modems. Windows 2K and up has the ability to use them together to double your bandwidth. In my case this gave me a tolerable 56K connection because the crappy non-digitial phone switch out here only supported (and still only supports) 28K. At that time Earthlink didn't charge anything more for using dual modems, but you have to eat the cost of a 2nd phone line.

I have a client who lives on an island with no broadband. He uses cellular but they don't get a good signal in the house so he has an antenna mast, and the air card is connected to a router which provides wifi for the house. All his neighbors are doing the same thing. Someone local sells all the hardware.

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 1:37 pm

I'm looking for any option that is at least 1mbps and doesn't have the latency of my satellite internet.. It makes doing RDP work almost unbearable 2300ms pings ;\

eGo

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 3:40 pm

How about ISDN for the cheap. Does anyone even do that anymore?

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 4:18 pm

ISDN isn't even really an option either. I'm looking for something that I can use to download patches and watch youtube all day if I so desire to do so. I don't want any bandwidth limitations.. My current limitation is 12GB a month and I can eat that up 6 days of watching youtube (I'm trying to catch up on some shows that I enjoy watching). So, to recap my available options..

What I currently have, Wild Blue 1.5mbps Down & 256kbs up. 12GB rolling 30 day cap. Latency : 1300-2400+ Not bearable to do remote work on another desktop, mouse clicks are 2-3 seconds behind.

Dial-Up - Had before satellite, 19.2kbps if I'm lucky. Latency, not too bad, but not enough speed to download patches or work on a clients PC realistically, also not viable for remote desktop work due to the slowness of response/loading time for new screens.

Wireless - Neighbors trees are in the way, but the owner of the company has a camp he rents on this lake and is "supposed" to be making the service available to the entire lake. But his speed is faster than Wild Blue, sub 100 latencies, no bandwidth cap.

Cellcard - Signal isn't good enough to be reliable, speeds are decent, but not as good as wild blue. Latency, decent. I do occasionally tether with my iPhone but it's not reliable as it fades in and out. Sometimes for seconds, sometimes for hours.

And that wraps up my only options at this point in time. So that's why I was looking at a possible T1 or even fractional T1. I'd settled for 1mbps up/down constant reliable connection that had no bandwidth limitations and was less than $275 a month as I'd save some of that money by dropping my cable service at my 2nd home that I only use for large downloads. But it's over an hour away, so I'm only there two or three times a month..

Anywho, that's my dilemma and now you see where I stand

eGo

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 6:22 pm

I was kinda joking.

Anyhow, you may consider getting a directional antenna for the Wireless. You really can get signals from miles away with the correct antenna positioned right.

Actually, check this one out, first review makes it sound right up your alley:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6833164110

Of course, if you're into home brew, this may be up your alley:
http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

Mickey

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 9:06 pm

normalicy wrote:I was kinda joking.

heh Sorry about that.. I've been wrapping my brain around this problem all weekend.. Still hoping that the wireless guy sends me an email on Monday letting me know he's up and running, but we'll see.. But, the antennas may be my next step/attempt. I've got an antenna pole that goes up about 20ft in the air right now, and I'm debating on tossing an antenna on top of it and seeing who/what I pick up around the area.

eGo

ZYFER · Post by **ZYFER** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 10:42 am

T1 prices can vary depending upon area. I haven't really seen them beneficial due to their limited speed/cost. I can get cable her for example, with faster speeds up and down than T1 is, at a fraction of the cost. Best you can do is contact your local telephone company and start asking questions there. They might offer the service more so to businesses, might be able to direct you to something else. Desolate areas are much harder to get service, the cost of installation alone might just turn you away.

canton_kid · Post by **canton_kid** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 9:53 am

Wireless - Neighbors trees are in the way, but the owner of the company has a camp he rents on this lake and is "supposed" to be making the service available to the entire lake. But his speed is faster than Wild Blue, sub 100 latencies, no bandwidth cap.

Can you put up a tower to get over the trees? For small antenna with good range you should be able to get by with a tall TV antenna type tower or Ham Radio etc..
They sell those big bulky dish type antenna's that have a large wind load but you should be able to get a small type with a near 8-10 miles range that is about the size of a pringles chip can, or build one.

Years ago I was thinking of setting up a wireless service around here, rural with no options also. I ended up with an office in back of ISP in town and direct connect to net there and never did anything. They were supposed to be working on wireless also at that time. Now I forgot most of what I jnew about it at the time except the antenna's can be pretty small with great range but the smaller they are the more accurate they need pointed at the tower.