11 replies to this topic

[monogodo]

Some of you may know that my internet access at home is via T3 line. We're supposed to have blazing-fast speeds with it. Well, we don't. And the "always on" connection keeps dropping. They had some equipment fail recently, and upgraded other equipment, but it hasn't helped. So I'm switching to cable modem.

Making the switch will not only save us close to $20 per month, but it should more than double our download speeds. Currently, my ISP limits us to 4 Mbps up and down. In actuality, the speeds are closer to 2.5 Mbps up and down. The Cable company has us on a package that is set for 10 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up. We're not all that concerned about upload speeds, since we rarely upload anything. Even if our average download speed is half of the promised 10, it's still faster than what we have now.

Now I've got to go through and change all of my online accounts that link to my ISP email address.

[Chad]

I switched from Comcast cable to Verizon DSL just a few hours ago. It's cheaper, but the main reason is that I'm eagerly awaiting Verizons FiOS to become available in my area.

[monogodo]

The company that bought out our building back in January has pre-wired their other building across the street with fiber optic connections. Unfortunately, we're not going to be able to use it here, because our building is over 100 years old, and when they renovated it 10 years ago, they didn't even pre-wire it with CAT5 wiring. I think that's another reason why our T3 speeds weren't that great. They have the T3 line coming into some equipment somewhere in the building, then it splits it out via the phone wiring in the building. We then connect a DSL modem to the phone line and receive the connection that way.

[Chad]

So your entire building is Internet ready?

[monogodo]

Well, kinda.

In our current building, the T3 box is somehow connected to the phone lines. So when a tenant wants that internet service, they call the company, who sends a technician with a DSL modem to hook it up.

In the last building we lived in, it was pre-wired with CAT5 cabling, and each unit had one Ethernet jack in it. Both buildings used the same ISP. There, when we wanted their service, we simply called them up, and they flipped a switch or something, and we had internet via the Ethernet jack.

From what I understand, in the new building that our new owners have just renovated, they're pre-wiring it with fiber optic cabling. I'm not entirely sure how it works.

[Chad]

That all sounds pretty efficient. I didn't think they did things like that outside of like dormitories or businesses. I know when I lived in the dorms when I was still in the military all I had to do was call Cox and they turned on my cable and Internet while I was on the phone with them. I had to get a modem and a cable box before all that, I had the option to pick up the units myself or a tech could come and deliver and 'install' everything for me. And by installing they mean plug everything in. So I picked up everything, hooked it up, called them and in just a few minutes everything was up and running.

So is having buildings like yours pre-wired like that more common than I thought or am I missing out?

[monogodo]

I think in newer buildings it's fairly common. The efficiency apartment I had in 2001 was pre-wired with ethernet jacks. I'm fairly certain all new builds, or recent renovations, are wired with network cabling for the simple reason that it makes sense to do it.

[Dave]

All buildings are prewired for smoke signals. I downloaded 'Soot' and 'Ash' in less than 20 minutes today.

[monogodo]

Oh, man, I got the cable modem this evening.


The fucking thing rocks!

Tech support told me that I should be getting speeds of 10 Mbps ± 1Mbps. That's more than double, at a minimum, our old ISP's speeds.

[malfouka]

almost all buildings in the Bay Area are pre-wired.

we had a T3 connection in our UC Berkeley apartment. it ROCKED! the main reason i wanted to stay was the connection. seriously. once i moved and went with Comcast, i found that there really wasn't much of a difference.

[monogodo]

My first ISP was dial-up with a 33.6 modem. Then in 1999 I went with Cable Modem, and loved the massive increase in speed. When I moved from the house I was living in to an apartment, I used an apartment locater and specified that the apartment had to have cable modem access (not all do).

Then, when Cynthia and I were to get married, the loft building we moved to was pre-wired with a shared T1 line. We could either subscribe to that service, or go with DSL. The DSL station (the physical location of the equipment, the distance from which determines one's speed) was 2 blocks from the building. We went with the T1, and were very happy. I knew neighbors who initially went with T1, but then switched to DSL, and noticed no difference.

When we moved into our current loft, the building was equipped with the same provider's T1 connection. The difference was that the building wasn't pre-wired with Cat-5 cabling. Instead, we had to connect to it via DSL modem. Over time, they upgraded the connection to a T3, and upgraded our equipment. But they limited us to 4 Mbps of bandwidth, both up and down. We were still happy with the connection until recently. Within the last 2-3 months, we'd be lucky to get half the promised speeds, and the connection would drop randomly and frequently. They discovered that there was a piece of equipment that was failing when it finally failed. Then they upgraded another piece of equipment. Our speeds still were at best only 75% of what they should be. While dealing with Tech Support, I learned that there are only 14 clients of the ISP in the building. We should never have a speed issue.

Another issue with the T3 ISP is that their tech support is available M-F, from 9am to 9pm, and on Saturdays from 10am to 6pm. Take a guess when I most needed to call Tech support. We also were paying $50 per month for the service.

What finally made me switch to cable modem was that we got a flyer in the mail. For years, we couldn't get cable modem here. Now we can. Not only have my speeds more than doubled, but I pay $20 less per month than before. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

Granted, the upload speeds with the cable modem are limited to 1 Mbps, while the T3 was limited to 4 Mbps. We really don't upload much. We don't use bit torrent. We don't run servers. We don't do file sharing. What files we do upload to web hosts are fairly small. We're willing to deal with the slower upload speeds.

[monogodo]

Out of curiosity, I did a speed test on the T3 line at work:

Link to image of results.

Yeah, we were getting screwed by our old ISP, big time. They were limiting us to 4000 kb/s. The T3 at work gave me over 10x that speed.

I'm now really glad that I switched to cable modem.