Update on my Internet connection

[Guest guest]

It looks like it could be the earliest that Comcast (my Internet Service

Provider) could get out here might be as late as Monday. I have been

instructed to call them back tomorrow morning to see if there is any

possibility at all of their getting out here tomorrow or Friday.



 

T. aka Pegasus

[Guest guest]

 I have had Comcast ever since I moved here in July 2001 and do not have much problems. This is just the second time I have had this problem and both times were with the setup I now have. In my bedroom, there is a computer with a dual TV tuner, my Internet connection and a DVR which leads to the TV - I had a VCR and a DVD player that were also part of the setup until the VCR crapped out about a year and a half ago (I did not replace that) and the DVD player crapped out about a year ago (I replaced that with a 5 disc DVD player) - the DVD player and DVR are hooked into a switching box which leads to the TV. Other than the change of DVD player and the removal of the VCR, I have had the same setup since late August 2005. Only once have I been told it might be the setup I have might be the problem but then they decided it was someone stealing signal. I can only think of one way I could have this setup without using splitter(s) inside the house (which Comcast concurs with) and that is for them to install 2 more lines into my bedroom but with my room setup, it would be impossible for them to reach the currently installed line because I would have to be able to remove my FILLED 30 gallon aquarium, my HUGE computer desk/entertainment center and my bed out of the room for them to do that - NOT doable according to my hubby, and his mother, father and brother because you cannot get my desk out without taking apart which would probably make it unable to be rebuilt and, in any case, you would need to remove the aquarium before moving the desk and the bed. We (hubby and I) built the desk inside my room because we could build it and then get it into my bedroom and that was before I had an aquarium in my bedroom.

  T. aka Pegasus

-- Re: Update on my Internet connection

Hello

I hate Comcast. Once (when they were Time Warner here), they left me disconnected for three weeks telling me that there was work in the area and to be patient whenever I called, finally there was no work in the area and they said "Hmmm, there shouldn't be a problem..." After taking a day off from work, it turned out that they had labeled my line with somebody else's address as well as mine and disconnected me intentionally thinking that they disconnected the other guy. No apologies, no compensation, nothing. Every time I saw one of their trucks in the area, I knew that my signal strength would be dropping, if I call them and spend a day off from work, all that happens is their tech just disconnects all my equipment till the weak signal is barely strong enough to run whatever is left and tells me that I'm not allowed to have everything plugged in. The tech actually told me that they should increase the power at the head unit but won't do so. One of my bookshelves was damaged when one of their techs wanted to get to the splitter and I wound up getting my own signal amplifier just to have more than a TV hooked up and more than just the strongest channels. At one point, they hooked up so many subscribers in my neighborhood that a dial up modem was faster than the cable modem due to the weak signal strength and they still wouldn't boost the power, again I had to get a signal amplifier myself to try and mitigate the problem. Actually, I watched one of their techs, they have these large coaxial amplifiers and the box only holds so many of them so when someone complains and spends a day waiting for the tech, the tech just moves the amplifier from someone else's line to yours and calls it done. Of course, it would be the easiest one for them to reach and when someone else calls in, they remove the amplifier from your line cause it's now the easiest one to reach just to boost the other customer's signal. After a sustained outage, their system assigned me a different IP address and suddenly I was inundated with someone else's peer to peer traffic to the point where their wasn't enough bandwidth to do anything, they claimed that I was doing the peer to peer and would have to live with the poor bandwidth.

In my opinion the cable companies are obsolete, TV programs can already be viewed for free over the Internet (just google for free TV) and the phone company now offers reasonable bandwidths. I'm using DSL these days but only because the developer screwed up with the phone distribution box, they didn't place the sub-division's distribution box where they had agreed to put it so now my phone line run is too long for AT & T's Uverse service. The subdivision was also supposed to have fibre, the houses all have fibre to the weatherhead (hole in the wall) but the developer forgot to lay down fibre to the distribution box. The Comcast cable run is also way too long, I can't even pick up all the channels unless I use one of my signal amplifiers.

After the move, Comcast said they would make the transistion completely transparent and painless but they stopped ebilling me and then cut me off saying that I hadn't paid the bills, I had always maintained that they needed to ebill me if they want to be paid so rather than reconnect, I just settled up and told them that I didn't want their service anymore which is just as well given how weak the signal is.

I've decided to get a HDTV antenna for local broadcast TV and just view the specific shows that I want over the net.

Regards,

On Sep 17, 2008, at 4:09 PM, Pegasus wrote:

It looks like it could be the earliest that Comcast (my Internet ServiceProvider) could get out here might be as late as Monday. I have beeninstructed to call them back tomorrow morning to see if there is anypossibility at all of their getting out here tomorrow or Friday. T. aka Pegasus

[Guest guest]

Hello The thing is that in order to put more than one drop into a room, they use a "splitter", it's actually the same one you would use (I know, I've seen it), only it would either be in the wall behind one of the outlets, the attic, basement or screwed on the outside of your home.   Now what does happen is that if you have more than three "drops", they charge you more.   The only real difference is that they are then responsible for having sufficient signal strength to run however many devices as you have drops, problem is they still don't care about that unless you threaten to take them to court over their weak signal and even then they'll just try to blame your equipment for the signal loss.Regards,On Sep 18, 2008, at 7:24 PM, Pegasus wrote:  I have had Comcast ever since I moved here in July 2001 and do not have much problems.  This is just the second time I have had this problem and both times were with the setup I now have.  In my bedroom, there is a computer with a dual TV tuner, my Internet connection and a DVR which leads to the TV - I had a VCR and a DVD player that were also part of the setup until the VCR crapped out about a year and a half ago (I did not replace that) and the DVD player crapped out about a year ago (I replaced that with a 5 disc DVD player) - the DVD player and DVR are hooked into a switching box which leads to the TV.  Other than the change of DVD player and the removal of the VCR, I have had the same setup since late August 2005.  Only once have I been told it might be the setup I have might be the problem but then they decided it was someone stealing signal.  I can only think of one way I could have this setup without using splitter(s) inside the house (which Comcast concurs with) and that is for them to install 2 more lines into my bedroom but with my room setup, it would be impossible for them to reach the currently installed line because I would have to be able to remove my FILLED 30 gallon aquarium, my HUGE computer desk/entertainment center and my bed out of the room for them to do that - NOT doable according to my hubby, and his mother, father and brother because you cannot get my desk out without taking apart which would probably make it unable to be rebuilt and, in any case, you would need to remove the aquarium before moving the desk and the bed.  We (hubby and I) built the desk inside my room because we could build it and then get it into my bedroom and that was before I had an aquarium in my bedroom.   <841890F5-96FC-43F1-B5C1-075AF2AAA011> T. aka Pegasus-- Re: Update on my Internet connection Hello I hate Comcast.   Once (when they were Time Warner here), they left me disconnected for three weeks telling me that there was work in the area and to be patient whenever I called, finally there was no work in the area and they said "Hmmm, there shouldn't be a problem..."   After taking a day off from work, it turned out that they had labeled my line with somebody else's address as well as mine and disconnected me intentionally thinking that they disconnected the other guy.   No apologies, no compensation, nothing.   Every time I saw one of their trucks in the area, I knew that my signal strength would be dropping, if I call them and spend a day off from work, all that happens is their tech just disconnects all my equipment till the weak signal is barely strong enough to run whatever is left and tells me that I'm not allowed to have everything plugged in.   The tech actually told me that they should increase the power at the head unit but won't do so.   One of my bookshelves was damaged when one of their techs wanted to get to the splitter and I wound up getting my own signal amplifier just to have more than a TV hooked up and more than just the strongest channels.   At one point, they hooked up so many subscribers in my neighborhood that a dial up modem was faster than the cable modem due to the weak signal strength and they still wouldn't boost the power, again I had to get a signal amplifier myself to try and mitigate the problem.   Actually, I watched one of their techs, they have these large coaxial amplifiers and the box only holds so many of them so when someone complains and spends a day waiting for the tech, the tech just moves the amplifier from someone else's line to yours and calls it done.   Of course, it would be the easiest one for them to reach and when someone else calls in, they remove the amplifier from your line cause it's now the easiest one to reach just to boost the other customer's signal.   After a sustained outage, their system assigned me a different IP address and suddenly I was inundated with someone else's peer to peer traffic to the point where their wasn't enough bandwidth to do anything, they claimed that I was doing the peer to peer and would have to live with the poor bandwidth.In my opinion the cable companies are obsolete, TV programs can already be viewed for free over the Internet (just google for free TV) and the phone company now offers reasonable bandwidths.   I'm using DSL these days but only because the developer screwed up with the phone distribution box, they didn't place the sub-division's distribution box where they had agreed to put it so now my phone line run is too long for AT & T's Uverse service.   The subdivision was also supposed to have fibre, the houses all have fibre to the weatherhead (hole in the wall) but the developer forgot to lay down fibre to the distribution box.   The Comcast cable run is also way too long, I can't even pick up all the channels unless I use one of my signal amplifiers.After the move, Comcast said they would make the transistion completely transparent and painless but they stopped ebilling me and then cut me off saying that I hadn't paid the bills, I had always maintained that they needed to ebill me if they want to be paid so rather than reconnect, I just settled up and told them that I didn't want their service anymore which is just as well given how weak the signal is.I've decided to get a HDTV antenna for local broadcast TV and just view the specific shows that I want over the net.Regards,On Sep 17, 2008, at 4:09 PM, Pegasus wrote:It looks like it could be the earliest that Comcast (my Internet ServiceProvider) could get out here might be as late as Monday. I have beeninstructed to call them back tomorrow morning to see if there is anypossibility at all of their getting out here tomorrow or Friday.  T. aka Pegasus 

[Guest guest]

Hello One thing to keep in mind is that when you have a splitter, each of the downstream lines must be of the same impedance in order to minimize the signal reflection from the splitter.   That means that you should keep each line coming off the splitter, the same length and the same grade of cable.   Mind you, no one ever counts the number of feet of cable they have off each line.Regards,On Sep 20, 2008, at 11:02 AM, Pegasus wrote:  That explains why they have not suggested that they change the way the signal goes into my household - they figure if I EVER move, then the new residents in this trailer would more than likely not have as complicated a computer as I have (so far, I have yet to meet anyone either in real life or online that has one or more TV tuners in their computer and I have met quite a few people online over the years and discussed computer systems with a lot of them) so more than likely the most connections in any room of this trailer would then be 2 (one for an Internet connection and one for TV reception).   <9FC9167D-34A2-4C6E-B14B-630469DD543B> T. aka Pegasus-- Re: Update on my Internet connection Hello I hate Comcast.   Once (when they were Time Warner here), they left me disconnected for three weeks telling me that there was work in the area and to be patient whenever I called, finally there was no work in the area and they said "Hmmm, there shouldn't be a problem..."   After taking a day off from work, it turned out that they had labeled my line with somebody else's address as well as mine and disconnected me intentionally thinking that they disconnected the other guy.   No apologies, no compensation, nothing.   Every time I saw one of their trucks in the area, I knew that my signal strength would be dropping, if I call them and spend a day off from work, all that happens is their tech just disconnects all my equipment till the weak signal is barely strong enough to run whatever is left and tells me that I'm not allowed to have everything plugged in.   The tech actually told me that they should increase the power at the head unit but won't do so.   One of my bookshelves was damaged when one of their techs wanted to get to the splitter and I wound up getting my own signal amplifier just to have more than a TV hooked up and more than just the strongest channels.   At one point, they hooked up so many subscribers in my neighborhood that a dial up modem was faster than the cable modem due to the weak signal strength and they still wouldn't boost the power, again I had to get a signal amplifier myself to try and mitigate the problem.   Actually, I watched one of their techs, they have these large coaxial amplifiers and the box only holds so many of them so when someone complains and spends a day waiting for the tech, the tech just moves the amplifier from someone else's line to yours and calls it done.   Of course, it would be the easiest one for them to reach and when someone else calls in, they remove the amplifier from your line cause it's now the easiest one to reach just to boost the other customer's signal.   After a sustained outage, their system assigned me a different IP address and suddenly I was inundated with someone else's peer to peer traffic to the point where their wasn't enough bandwidth to do anything, they claimed that I was doing the peer to peer and would have to live with the poor bandwidth.In my opinion the cable companies are obsolete, TV programs can already be viewed for free over the Internet (just google for free TV) and the phone company now offers reasonable bandwidths.   I'm using DSL these days but only because the developer screwed up with the phone distribution box, they didn't place the sub-division's distribution box where they had agreed to put it so now my phone line run is too long for AT & T's Uverse service.   The subdivision was also supposed to have fibre, the houses all have fibre to the weatherhead (hole in the wall) but the developer forgot to lay down fibre to the distribution box.   The Comcast cable run is also way too long, I can't even pick up all the channels unless I use one of my signal amplifiers.After the move, Comcast said they would make the transistion completely transparent and painless but they stopped ebilling me and then cut me off saying that I hadn't paid the bills, I had always maintained that they needed to ebill me if they want to be paid so rather than reconnect, I just settled up and told them that I didn't want their service anymore which is just as well given how weak the signal is.I've decided to get a HDTV antenna for local broadcast TV and just view the specific shows that I want over the net.Regards,On Sep 17, 2008, at 4:09 PM, Pegasus wrote:It looks like it could be the earliest that Comcast (my Internet ServiceProvider) could get out here might be as late as Monday. I have beeninstructed to call them back tomorrow morning to see if there is anypossibility at all of their getting out here tomorrow or Friday.  T. aka Pegasus  

[Guest guest]

we have bresnan here and it seems good only once in while the speed will drop and be real slow then with out any reason or cause it will go back to normal I try get online and they say well our computers sow every ting on our side is fine it must be your computer funny before went I ad another company with the same computer my speed never dropped of course they say well you must have a virus even tough I run top virus software and know more about computers ten mot of the little tecs tey have so not sue what the deal is with that

[Guest guest]

we have bresnan here and it seems good only once in while the speed will drop and be real slow then with out any reason or cause it will go back to normal I try get online and they say well our computers sow every ting on our side is fine it must be your computer funny before went I ad another company with the same computer my speed never dropped of course they say well you must have a virus even tough I run top virus software and know more about computers ten mot of the little tecs tey have so not sue what the deal is with that

[Guest guest]

 I have been investigating other options for TV/Internet in my area. Satellite TV requires a landline phone line and a deposit and a credit check - I refuse to get a landline again and do not have the deposit. Satellite Internet requires a deposit and a credit check again I do not have the deposit. They would cost less per month for comparable service to what I am supposed to be receiving from Comcast but are not a viable option. DSL, I am about 1/4 mile too far away from a hub(?) and it requires a landline - again not willing to get a landline. Dialup requires a landline which I refuse to get.

  T. aka Pegasus

-- Re: Update on my Internet connection

Hello

I hate Comcast. Once (when they were Time Warner here), they left me disconnected for three weeks telling me that there was work in the area and to be patient whenever I called, finally there was no work in the area and they said "Hmmm, there shouldn't be a problem..." After taking a day off from work, it turned out that they had labeled my line with somebody else's address as well as mine and disconnected me intentionally thinking that they disconnected the other guy. No apologies, no compensation, nothing. Every time I saw one of their trucks in the area, I knew that my signal strength would be dropping, if I call them and spend a day off from work, all that happens is their tech just disconnects all my equipment till the weak signal is barely strong enough to run whatever is left and tells me that I'm not allowed to have everything plugged in. The tech actually told me that they should increase the power at the head unit but won't do so. One of my bookshelves was damaged when one of their techs wanted to get to the splitter and I wound up getting my own signal amplifier just to have more than a TV hooked up and more than just the strongest channels. At one point, they hooked up so many subscribers in my neighborhood that a dial up modem was faster than the cable modem due to the weak signal strength and they still wouldn't boost the power, again I had to get a signal amplifier myself to try and mitigate the problem. Actually, I watched one of their techs, they have these large coaxial amplifiers and the box only holds so many of them so when someone complains and spends a day waiting for the tech, the tech just moves the amplifier from someone else's line to yours and calls it done. Of course, it would be the easiest one for them to reach and when someone else calls in, they remove the amplifier from your line cause it's now the easiest one to reach just to boost the other customer's signal. After a sustained outage, their system assigned me a different IP address and suddenly I was inundated with someone else's peer to peer traffic to the point where their wasn't enough bandwidth to do anything, they claimed that I was doing the peer to peer and would have to live with the poor bandwidth.

In my opinion the cable companies are obsolete, TV programs can already be viewed for free over the Internet (just google for free TV) and the phone company now offers reasonable bandwidths. I'm using DSL these days but only because the developer screwed up with the phone distribution box, they didn't place the sub-division's distribution box where they had agreed to put it so now my phone line run is too long for AT & T's Uverse service. The subdivision was also supposed to have fibre, the houses all have fibre to the weatherhead (hole in the wall) but the developer forgot to lay down fibre to the distribution box. The Comcast cable run is also way too long, I can't even pick up all the channels unless I use one of my signal amplifiers.

After the move, Comcast said they would make the transistion completely transparent and painless but they stopped ebilling me and then cut me off saying that I hadn't paid the bills, I had always maintained that they needed to ebill me if they want to be paid so rather than reconnect, I just settled up and told them that I didn't want their service anymore which is just as well given how weak the signal is.

I've decided to get a HDTV antenna for local broadcast TV and just view the specific shows that I want over the net.

Regards,

On Sep 17, 2008, at 4:09 PM, Pegasus wrote:

It looks like it could be the earliest that Comcast (my Internet ServiceProvider) could get out here might be as late as Monday. I have beeninstructed to call them back tomorrow morning to see if there is anypossibility at all of their getting out here tomorrow or Friday. T. aka Pegasus

[Guest guest]

Hello Satellite Internet has another problem.   It's a very long distance up to the satellite and back down;  even at the speed of light, this creates a time delay that is difficult for some communication protocols to handle.   The consequence is that they'll be problems like the image downloads on a web page suddenly slowing down to a crawl after half the page has been downloaded, etc.   Most companies VPN solutions to allow workers to telecommute have not been tuned to allow for such long delays.   There are talks about high altitude blimps or solar powered planes that would carry communication gear and fly around a spot for months at a time, they would be a lot closer to the ground than a satellite, cheaper to launch and could be brought back down for repairs and upgrades.   Of course, neither the blimps or planes are commercial yet but that will be the future of rural internet.   Meanwhile, Cell phone companies are trying to deploy wireless internet services from their cell phone towers.   Currently, I think the cell phone companies are still too expensive and the bandwidth too low but they are coming down in price and they are deploying new equipment, I'm encountering more and more people with the cell phone wireless everyday.   It'll be interesting to see if the cell phone companies pre-empt the market for the blimps and planes.Many States are passing laws that prohibit bundling the DSL service with the phone line service.   ATT just sent me an email saying that they no longer required you to have a phone subscription in order to have a DSL service.   It may be worth checking if you State still requires the phone line for the DSL line.   I've got my phone line down to almost the bare minimum price, I think it's down at about $15 a month, the lowest is $11 a month, they don't advertise these low rate packages and you have to press hard before they'll even admit that they have them and these packages come with per minute charges for usage after a certain monthly allowance has been exceeded.   But I have the ringers turned off on the phones connected to the line since I only want the phone line for the DSL and emergencies.   Note that the DSL lines stayed up during the Hurricane while Comcast estimates that about 75% of their subscribers lost service during the storm (it's probably higher).   That's because phone companies are required to have battery backups and they have their own power generation and distribution system (electrical power wasn't common when phones first came out) whereas there's no regulation to require cable companies to have any redundancy whatsoever.My phone line is about 200 feet too long for the ATT U-verse service but they say that I can still have DSL or even 10 Mbps internet service if I want it.   The irony is that the wiring layout agreed upon between the phone companies and the developer had me well within the range of the U-verse services as well as fiber to the houses but the developer but the distribution box on the side of the development for convenience instead of the agreed upon location and didn't run the fiber though all the houses have fiber from the inside to the weatherhead.   Maybe I should trench a fiber over to the lake and then reel out a line over to their distribution box.There was and may still be a free WiFi effort.   When WiFi first came out, the open community started interconnecting their wireless cells so that you could route across the WiFi cells to several private individuals DSL and cable modem links and get out to the Internet.   The plan was ambitious and I guess there isn't enough geeks within 25 miles of each other to provide sufficient coverage but who knows, maybe your neighbour is an old radio ham operator type of geek.Sprint bought a UHF TV station here back in the mid 90's and they do an Internet service over the TV station's UHF frequency providing Internet service so long as you have line of sight with the TV station's tower.   In Feb. 2009, when they turn off the analog TV broadcasts, they plan on re-auctioning out the frequencies to companies that may do the same so it may be worth it to check the market after Feb. 2009 as well.Regards,On Sep 22, 2008, at 7:40 AM, Pegasus wrote:  I have been investigating other options for TV/Internet in my area.  Satellite TV requires a landline phone line and a deposit and a credit check - I refuse to get a landline again and do not have the deposit.  Satellite Internet requires a deposit and a credit check again I do not have the deposit.  They would cost less per month for comparable service to what I am supposed to be receiving from Comcast but are not a viable option.  DSL, I am about 1/4 mile too far away from a hub(?) and it requires a landline - again not willing to get a landline.  Dialup requires a landline which I refuse to get.   <E114DDC7-F214-4AEF-86D4-F18FE62F99F4> T. aka Pegasus-- Re: Update on my Internet connection Hello I hate Comcast.   Once (when they were Time Warner here), they left me disconnected for three weeks telling me that there was work in the area and to be patient whenever I called, finally there was no work in the area and they said "Hmmm, there shouldn't be a problem..."   After taking a day off from work, it turned out that they had labeled my line with somebody else's address as well as mine and disconnected me intentionally thinking that they disconnected the other guy.   No apologies, no compensation, nothing.   Every time I saw one of their trucks in the area, I knew that my signal strength would be dropping, if I call them and spend a day off from work, all that happens is their tech just disconnects all my equipment till the weak signal is barely strong enough to run whatever is left and tells me that I'm not allowed to have everything plugged in.   The tech actually told me that they should increase the power at the head unit but won't do so.   One of my bookshelves was damaged when one of their techs wanted to get to the splitter and I wound up getting my own signal amplifier just to have more than a TV hooked up and more than just the strongest channels.   At one point, they hooked up so many subscribers in my neighborhood that a dial up modem was faster than the cable modem due to the weak signal strength and they still wouldn't boost the power, again I had to get a signal amplifier myself to try and mitigate the problem.   Actually, I watched one of their techs, they have these large coaxial amplifiers and the box only holds so many of them so when someone complains and spends a day waiting for the tech, the tech just moves the amplifier from someone else's line to yours and calls it done.   Of course, it would be the easiest one for them to reach and when someone else calls in, they remove the amplifier from your line cause it's now the easiest one to reach just to boost the other customer's signal.   After a sustained outage, their system assigned me a different IP address and suddenly I was inundated with someone else's peer to peer traffic to the point where their wasn't enough bandwidth to do anything, they claimed that I was doing the peer to peer and would have to live with the poor bandwidth.In my opinion the cable companies are obsolete, TV programs can already be viewed for free over the Internet (just google for free TV) and the phone company now offers reasonable bandwidths.   I'm using DSL these days but only because the developer screwed up with the phone distribution box, they didn't place the sub-division's distribution box where they had agreed to put it so now my phone line run is too long for AT & T's Uverse service.   The subdivision was also supposed to have fibre, the houses all have fibre to the weatherhead (hole in the wall) but the developer forgot to lay down fibre to the distribution box.   The Comcast cable run is also way too long, I can't even pick up all the channels unless I use one of my signal amplifiers.After the move, Comcast said they would make the transistion completely transparent and painless but they stopped ebilling me and then cut me off saying that I hadn't paid the bills, I had always maintained that they needed to ebill me if they want to be paid so rather than reconnect, I just settled up and told them that I didn't want their service anymore which is just as well given how weak the signal is.I've decided to get a HDTV antenna for local broadcast TV and just view the specific shows that I want over the net.Regards,On Sep 17, 2008, at 4:09 PM, Pegasus wrote:It looks like it could be the earliest that Comcast (my Internet ServiceProvider) could get out here might be as late as Monday. I have beeninstructed to call them back tomorrow morning to see if there is anypossibility at all of their getting out here tomorrow or Friday.  T. aka Pegasus    

[Guest guest]

Hello Satellite Internet has another problem.   It's a very long distance up to the satellite and back down;  even at the speed of light, this creates a time delay that is difficult for some communication protocols to handle.   The consequence is that they'll be problems like the image downloads on a web page suddenly slowing down to a crawl after half the page has been downloaded, etc.   Most companies VPN solutions to allow workers to telecommute have not been tuned to allow for such long delays.   There are talks about high altitude blimps or solar powered planes that would carry communication gear and fly around a spot for months at a time, they would be a lot closer to the ground than a satellite, cheaper to launch and could be brought back down for repairs and upgrades.   Of course, neither the blimps or planes are commercial yet but that will be the future of rural internet.   Meanwhile, Cell phone companies are trying to deploy wireless internet services from their cell phone towers.   Currently, I think the cell phone companies are still too expensive and the bandwidth too low but they are coming down in price and they are deploying new equipment, I'm encountering more and more people with the cell phone wireless everyday.   It'll be interesting to see if the cell phone companies pre-empt the market for the blimps and planes.Many States are passing laws that prohibit bundling the DSL service with the phone line service.   ATT just sent me an email saying that they no longer required you to have a phone subscription in order to have a DSL service.   It may be worth checking if you State still requires the phone line for the DSL line.   I've got my phone line down to almost the bare minimum price, I think it's down at about $15 a month, the lowest is $11 a month, they don't advertise these low rate packages and you have to press hard before they'll even admit that they have them and these packages come with per minute charges for usage after a certain monthly allowance has been exceeded.   But I have the ringers turned off on the phones connected to the line since I only want the phone line for the DSL and emergencies.   Note that the DSL lines stayed up during the Hurricane while Comcast estimates that about 75% of their subscribers lost service during the storm (it's probably higher).   That's because phone companies are required to have battery backups and they have their own power generation and distribution system (electrical power wasn't common when phones first came out) whereas there's no regulation to require cable companies to have any redundancy whatsoever.My phone line is about 200 feet too long for the ATT U-verse service but they say that I can still have DSL or even 10 Mbps internet service if I want it.   The irony is that the wiring layout agreed upon between the phone companies and the developer had me well within the range of the U-verse services as well as fiber to the houses but the developer but the distribution box on the side of the development for convenience instead of the agreed upon location and didn't run the fiber though all the houses have fiber from the inside to the weatherhead.   Maybe I should trench a fiber over to the lake and then reel out a line over to their distribution box.There was and may still be a free WiFi effort.   When WiFi first came out, the open community started interconnecting their wireless cells so that you could route across the WiFi cells to several private individuals DSL and cable modem links and get out to the Internet.   The plan was ambitious and I guess there isn't enough geeks within 25 miles of each other to provide sufficient coverage but who knows, maybe your neighbour is an old radio ham operator type of geek.Sprint bought a UHF TV station here back in the mid 90's and they do an Internet service over the TV station's UHF frequency providing Internet service so long as you have line of sight with the TV station's tower.   In Feb. 2009, when they turn off the analog TV broadcasts, they plan on re-auctioning out the frequencies to companies that may do the same so it may be worth it to check the market after Feb. 2009 as well.Regards,On Sep 22, 2008, at 7:40 AM, Pegasus wrote:  I have been investigating other options for TV/Internet in my area.  Satellite TV requires a landline phone line and a deposit and a credit check - I refuse to get a landline again and do not have the deposit.  Satellite Internet requires a deposit and a credit check again I do not have the deposit.  They would cost less per month for comparable service to what I am supposed to be receiving from Comcast but are not a viable option.  DSL, I am about 1/4 mile too far away from a hub(?) and it requires a landline - again not willing to get a landline.  Dialup requires a landline which I refuse to get.   <E114DDC7-F214-4AEF-86D4-F18FE62F99F4> T. aka Pegasus-- Re: Update on my Internet connection Hello I hate Comcast.   Once (when they were Time Warner here), they left me disconnected for three weeks telling me that there was work in the area and to be patient whenever I called, finally there was no work in the area and they said "Hmmm, there shouldn't be a problem..."   After taking a day off from work, it turned out that they had labeled my line with somebody else's address as well as mine and disconnected me intentionally thinking that they disconnected the other guy.   No apologies, no compensation, nothing.   Every time I saw one of their trucks in the area, I knew that my signal strength would be dropping, if I call them and spend a day off from work, all that happens is their tech just disconnects all my equipment till the weak signal is barely strong enough to run whatever is left and tells me that I'm not allowed to have everything plugged in.   The tech actually told me that they should increase the power at the head unit but won't do so.   One of my bookshelves was damaged when one of their techs wanted to get to the splitter and I wound up getting my own signal amplifier just to have more than a TV hooked up and more than just the strongest channels.   At one point, they hooked up so many subscribers in my neighborhood that a dial up modem was faster than the cable modem due to the weak signal strength and they still wouldn't boost the power, again I had to get a signal amplifier myself to try and mitigate the problem.   Actually, I watched one of their techs, they have these large coaxial amplifiers and the box only holds so many of them so when someone complains and spends a day waiting for the tech, the tech just moves the amplifier from someone else's line to yours and calls it done.   Of course, it would be the easiest one for them to reach and when someone else calls in, they remove the amplifier from your line cause it's now the easiest one to reach just to boost the other customer's signal.   After a sustained outage, their system assigned me a different IP address and suddenly I was inundated with someone else's peer to peer traffic to the point where their wasn't enough bandwidth to do anything, they claimed that I was doing the peer to peer and would have to live with the poor bandwidth.In my opinion the cable companies are obsolete, TV programs can already be viewed for free over the Internet (just google for free TV) and the phone company now offers reasonable bandwidths.   I'm using DSL these days but only because the developer screwed up with the phone distribution box, they didn't place the sub-division's distribution box where they had agreed to put it so now my phone line run is too long for AT & T's Uverse service.   The subdivision was also supposed to have fibre, the houses all have fibre to the weatherhead (hole in the wall) but the developer forgot to lay down fibre to the distribution box.   The Comcast cable run is also way too long, I can't even pick up all the channels unless I use one of my signal amplifiers.After the move, Comcast said they would make the transistion completely transparent and painless but they stopped ebilling me and then cut me off saying that I hadn't paid the bills, I had always maintained that they needed to ebill me if they want to be paid so rather than reconnect, I just settled up and told them that I didn't want their service anymore which is just as well given how weak the signal is.I've decided to get a HDTV antenna for local broadcast TV and just view the specific shows that I want over the net.Regards,On Sep 17, 2008, at 4:09 PM, Pegasus wrote:It looks like it could be the earliest that Comcast (my Internet ServiceProvider) could get out here might be as late as Monday. I have beeninstructed to call them back tomorrow morning to see if there is anypossibility at all of their getting out here tomorrow or Friday.  T. aka Pegasus