# How Do You Connect?



## Torin_Darkflight (Sep 9, 2006)

Simple and quick question here: what method do you use to connect to the internet?

Myself, I've been suffering with dialup for the past 11 years...until today that is. Today, I finally went out and got us some high-speed internet. Well, semi-high-speed anyway. Being in a rural area, cable and DSL aren't available here. There's satellite, but not only is that insanely expensive ($700 setup and equipment fee?! Who could ever afford that?!), it's also crap for gaming, and unreliable according to some friends I know who have satellite. So, I went with the only truly affordable service that I knew for a fact we could get here: wireless.

The service I signed up for is a new wireless MMDS (Not WiFi) service that just started up in our area last month, called CommSpeed. It's so new in fact, that currently it's only available eight places in the entire country. I signed up for the $30/month 256kbit/sec plan. Yeah, I know it's nowhere near as fast as cable or DSL, but it's still tons better than dialup. The bandwidth test I ran earlier calculated averages of 250kbit/sec download and 150kbit/sec upload, which is almost spot on the advertised speeds. Pretty sweet!

One thing that really interests me about this new service is that there's no antenna on the outside of the house. All you need is a small receiver box (Which is only slightly bigger than a standard DVD movie case) connected to your computer, the antenna is built right in. Even though I'm four miles away from the tower and the receiver is inside the house, the signal meter is currently at 100%. Also, supposedly you can take the receiver box anywhere with you, and as long as you stay within range of the tower, you'll have internet.

Hehe, high-speed is SOOOOOO much better than dialup!


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## Kairyu (Sep 9, 2006)

Well my internet service provider is Earthlink, yes it the super broadband connection =p.
Also all my computers are either physically connected to a router (linksys WRT54G) or connected wirelessly. I don't think my range isn't more than 30 feet though! Eh, what can I expect from a 2 year old router?


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## Malcolm the Bear (Sep 9, 2006)

Hey, we've got the same wireless router in our home here!  We don't have any problems with it.

Anyways, I've got Cable for now, though we're probably gonna downgrade sometime soon to DSL.  Ah, well--I hope it doesn't seem to be any sort of big noticeable change.


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## robomilk (Sep 9, 2006)

Ours is a wireless router conneced to NTL cable internet. It's handy as they also do our digital TV and phone!

I did a Speed Test.

*Communications* 609.1 kilobits per second
*Storage* 74.4 kilobytes per second
*1MB file download* 13.8 seconds
*Subjective rating* Not bad


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## blackdragoon (Sep 9, 2006)

mine is cable without the wireless router. as a result i had to use a splitter from my tv and wrap the cable wire around the corner where my front door is as well as over the frame of the door to connect it directly to my modem. but it's ok cuz it's a highspeed broadband connection. let's just say when my cable bill comes in it = $89.95 a month. but that includes cable too so it's all good.


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## Suule (Sep 9, 2006)

WiFi

256 kbps down/up

I'm thinking of expanding it to 512 kbps down/up since my little 3 PC network is starting to choke.


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## Ruiner (Sep 10, 2006)

56k BABY! 56K!

THATS RIGHT OWNAGE!


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## Silverdragon00 (Sep 10, 2006)

I'd like to have high speed, but dial-up is fine for me. Never had too much of a problem with it (except for the slow down every once in a great while and losing my connection which can get annoying, but also doesn't happen too often)For $9.95 a month with Netzero, I can't complain too much


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## RokKaiser (Sep 10, 2006)

I hate dialup.... .com

stupid thing..  it never connects faster than 26k....

but here i am, stubborn as ever XD


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## Arshes Nei (Sep 11, 2006)

Cell phone uses 112kpbs connection when it's stable.


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## Bokracroc (Sep 11, 2006)

RokKaiser said:
			
		

> stupid thing..  it never connects faster than 26k....


If you mean 26Kbps then :shock: where the hell do you live?
I connect at 40-44kbps.


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## whitedingo (Sep 11, 2006)

Dialup at the momment but satellite soon ,thay tell me it will be 800 down and 128 up but I'll wait and see what speed it is the company I work for gets figures wrong alot ,Management:roll:


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## Silver R. Wolfe (Sep 11, 2006)

Cable, going through a D-Link router being split up between 3-4 different computers wirelessly.


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## yak (Sep 11, 2006)

ADSL-2 12 Mbit WAN. local p2p networks all the way. thou i harly ever ever use the whole pipe. 

as for the rest of the world.. uhm.. unlimited traffic 128k day/256k night (x2 at weekends).. divided amongst 6 other people on my LAN, because i cannot pay the full price. a working solution to a major problem. thou it makes me want to clubber someone at times, especially at evenings.


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## The Sonic God (Sep 11, 2006)

My home: 8mbit ADSL
My father's home: 3gbit fibre channel

Fibre roxxors da cable. 

If you ever get a fibre based connection, anything else will be horribly slow to you.


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## tundra_arctic_wolf (Sep 12, 2006)

AT&T ADSL service.


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## Aikon (Sep 12, 2006)

Comcast HiSpeed.  I've tried going back to dialup but it was impossible.  It was like going back to the dark ages when you actually had to wait for pictures to load.


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## oddfox (Sep 15, 2006)

Comcast High Speed Internet, fresh off the Qwest DSL bus. Jeez, DSL sucks compared to cable speeds, nice to finally be back on the real broadband. Well, except for the upload speed. ;(

The speed test from robomilk's post had this to say:



> Communications 4.5 megabits per second
> Storage 546.4 kilobytes per second
> 1MB file download 1.9 seconds
> Subjective rating Awesome



Burst speeds anywhere from 1-2MB/sec. and on most sites I can even maintain 1MB/sec.


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## RokKaiser (Sep 16, 2006)

Bokracroc said:
			
		

> RokKaiser said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes, thats what i mean lol.  I live in the middle of nowhere XD Ill explain (or at least try to)

comparing MI to your hand... hold your right hand palm up with fingers extended.  Now, point near the base of your pinky.... that is where i live.  Middle of nowhere XD


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## coffeewolf (Oct 11, 2006)

Wireless USB broadband dongly thing. 11MB/S, Generally downloads at 60-100kb/s


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## xsv (Oct 11, 2006)

Gigabit in house network, 802.11g @ 54Mbit with WPA2-RADIUS tunneled through a 2048 bit encrypted VPN to my openBSD router, and then an 8.0/768 cable connection to the internet.


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## Rhainor (Oct 11, 2006)

EarthLink dial-up.

What I *want* is FIOS (Mmm...fiber-optic internet...), unfortunately FIOS isn't currently available where I live.


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## Silverdragon00 (Oct 11, 2006)

Well, now I have high speed dial-up. It's pretty good for the price, but I would still love to have something faster.


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## TheLostWolf (Oct 11, 2006)

270MB/s MIMO router and a 8mb/s cable line.


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## InvaderPichu (Oct 11, 2006)

Mediacom cable internet. My laptop connects to my brother's PC via a Linksys router.


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## DarkMeW (Oct 11, 2006)

cable modem, sadly I'll be back on dial up in a couple months


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## CyberFoxx (Oct 13, 2006)

Let's see, from the VIA Rhine II NIC on my motherboard, we follow the Cat-5e up to the attic to a D-Link 5-port switch. Then we follow another Cat-5e line along the outside wall of the house down to the basement to a D-Link 8-port switch. Then there's a short Cat-5e run to the Intel EtherExpress Pro 10/100 on the Pentium 3 450 acting as the Firewall/DHCP/DNS/IMAP Server/Transparent Squid Proxy/etc/etc/etc for the house. Then it's out the Linksys 10Mbit NIC, along another short Cat-5e run, to the Motorola Surfboard Cable modem and out to Roger's "wonderful" Cable-based network.

Well, you asked how I connect. ^_^

BTW, I got the Express package, so that's 5Mbit/384Kbit. Sure the Extreme package at 10Mbit/1Mbit would be nice, but this is fast enough for me.


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## Kougar (Oct 14, 2006)

Cable internet -> wireless G router -> Powerline Ethernet plug jacks

Sat back and realized for all the money being spent to strengthen the super-G wireless signal to reach every corner of the house, it made far more sense to forget wireless and simply turn every plug in the house into a connection point. Using the now slightly outdated 85mbps Netgear equipment, but it's fast enough to give the full cable speed. The current Homeplug standard got bumped to 200mbps now. No drops, issues, or concerns about wireless security to worry about anymore...


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## locomojo (Oct 14, 2006)

4.7 megabits per second
Communications 4.7 megabits per second
Storage 567.9 kilobytes per second
1MB file download 1.8 seconds
Subjective rating Awesome

Roadrunner


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## uncia2000 (Oct 14, 2006)

By ripping out FA's HDD and sticking it in my PC might be my best option at present...

Erm, sorry; peak-time blues... :?


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## Dragoneer (Oct 15, 2006)

I connect to serious cable internets.


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