Geek help

On Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:45:10 -0800 (PST), Larry L
wrote:

My kid is moving back home while he waits to head off to grad
school. In the mean time he has three jobs, two of which are as
research assistants for professors and apparently require lots of time
on the Internet.

So, I guess we're in the market for a fast connection. Nothing
"wired" is available out here and I'm trying to figure out the
differences between "radio" and satellite wireless providers.

Currently my little tray icon says 26.4 kbps and I'm also trying to
get a feel for how much faster 1.5 megabyte/sec is and how that should
be abbreviated ... MB/sec MBps mbps mb/sec etc etc. I thought I
knew some of this stuff but it's many many years since I had any real
interest in puters and my "knowledge: has evaporated. After thumbing
through 3 wireless ISP companies brochures I'm even more confused than
my norm.


TIA

Well, the math is simple enough: if you really can achieve 1.5 Megabytes per
second on a wireless WAN connection available in your location, that's nearly
500 times higher throughput than your 26.4 Kilobit dial-up connection
provides.

From a utility viewpoint, that's a humongous enabler. Indeed, in this era,
your dialup connection is not far removed from Marconi's time wrt
practicality. Just saying...

On Dec 16, 3:18*pm, personaobscura
wrote:
On Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:45:10 -0800 (PST), Larry L
wrote:



My kid is moving back home while he waits to head off to grad
school. * In the mean time he has three jobs, two of which are as
research assistants for professors and apparently require lots of time
on the Internet.

So, I guess we're in the market for a fast connection. * *Nothing
"wired" is available out here and I'm trying to figure out the
differences between "radio" and satellite wireless providers.

Currently my little tray icon says 26.4 kbps and I'm also trying to
get a feel for how much faster 1.5 megabyte/sec is and how that should
be abbreviated ... MB/sec *MBps *mbps mb/sec etc etc. * *I thought I
knew some of this stuff but it's many many years since I had any real
interest in puters and my "knowledge: has evaporated. *After thumbing
through 3 wireless ISP companies brochures I'm even more confused than
my norm.

TIA

Well, the math is simple enough: if you really can achieve 1.5 Megabytes per
second on a wireless WAN connection available in your location, that's nearly
500 times higher throughput than your 26.4 Kilobit dial-up connection
provides.

From a utility viewpoint, that's a humongous enabler. Indeed, in this era,
your dialup connection is not far removed from Marconi's time wrt
practicality. Just saying...

I know how bad my current connection is, I've been trying years to get
something done about it. I'm the last house on a dead end rural road
and the phone lines are so old they actually go through trees in a
couple places ( the wood has grown around the wires, over time.) The
phone repair guy once told me he had never seen worse or more spliced
lines BUT the phone company says they meet the minimum data transfer
required by regulations ( enough for a FAX machine, apparently ) and
there is no way they are going to replace a mile of line to make me
happy.

One thing I want to know is there an official difference between mb
and MB ... are these a million bits and a million bytes and is byte
8 times the data as bit. The people on the phones seem to use
"megabit" and "megabyte" interchangeably but I think that is
wrong .... are most advertised speeds in bits or bytes?

TIA,again

On Thu, 16 Dec 2010 15:42:50 -0800 (PST), Larry L
wrote:

On Dec 16, 3:18*pm, personaobscura
wrote:
On Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:45:10 -0800 (PST), Larry L
wrote:



My kid is moving back home while he waits to head off to grad
school. * In the mean time he has three jobs, two of which are as
research assistants for professors and apparently require lots of time
on the Internet.

So, I guess we're in the market for a fast connection. * *Nothing
"wired" is available out here and I'm trying to figure out the
differences between "radio" and satellite wireless providers.

Currently my little tray icon says 26.4 kbps and I'm also trying to
get a feel for how much faster 1.5 megabyte/sec is and how that should
be abbreviated ... MB/sec *MBps *mbps mb/sec etc etc. * *I thought I
knew some of this stuff but it's many many years since I had any real
interest in puters and my "knowledge: has evaporated. *After thumbing
through 3 wireless ISP companies brochures I'm even more confused than
my norm.

TIA

Well, the math is simple enough: if you really can achieve 1.5 Megabytes per
second on a wireless WAN connection available in your location, that's nearly
500 times higher throughput than your 26.4 Kilobit dial-up connection
provides.

From a utility viewpoint, that's a humongous enabler. Indeed, in this era,
your dialup connection is not far removed from Marconi's time wrt
practicality. Just saying...

I know how bad my current connection is, I've been trying years to get
something done about it. I'm the last house on a dead end rural road
and the phone lines are so old they actually go through trees in a
couple places ( the wood has grown around the wires, over time.) The
phone repair guy once told me he had never seen worse or more spliced
lines BUT the phone company says they meet the minimum data transfer
required by regulations ( enough for a FAX machine, apparently ) and
there is no way they are going to replace a mile of line to make me
happy.

One thing I want to know is there an official difference between mb
and MB ... are these a million bits and a million bytes and is byte
8 times the data as bit. The people on the phones seem to use
"megabit" and "megabyte" interchangeably but I think that is
wrong .... are most advertised speeds in bits or bytes?

TIA,again

I can offer 3- 4 sugggestions

1 Get a cousin, friend,son of a friend grand kid of a friend - a
young guy (who uses the web) - to set you up and pay him $10 per hr

If you do not have the above
Go to Staoles or Office Max and ask a few of the kids that work there
to help you on the side - same 10 or so $$$

3 Geek Squad More money

4 a local computer store

Your connection is antiquated -

Fred

On Thu, 16 Dec 2010 15:42:50 -0800 (PST), Larry L
wrote:

On Dec 16, 3:18*pm, personaobscura
wrote:
On Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:45:10 -0800 (PST), Larry L
wrote:



My kid is moving back home while he waits to head off to grad
school. * In the mean time he has three jobs, two of which are as
research assistants for professors and apparently require lots of time
on the Internet.

So, I guess we're in the market for a fast connection. * *Nothing
"wired" is available out here and I'm trying to figure out the
differences between "radio" and satellite wireless providers.

Currently my little tray icon says 26.4 kbps and I'm also trying to
get a feel for how much faster 1.5 megabyte/sec is and how that should
be abbreviated ... MB/sec *MBps *mbps mb/sec etc etc. * *I thought I
knew some of this stuff but it's many many years since I had any real
interest in puters and my "knowledge: has evaporated. *After thumbing
through 3 wireless ISP companies brochures I'm even more confused than
my norm.

TIA

Well, the math is simple enough: if you really can achieve 1.5 Megabytes per
second on a wireless WAN connection available in your location, that's nearly
500 times higher throughput than your 26.4 Kilobit dial-up connection
provides.

From a utility viewpoint, that's a humongous enabler. Indeed, in this era,
your dialup connection is not far removed from Marconi's time wrt
practicality. Just saying...

I know how bad my current connection is, I've been trying years to get
something done about it. I'm the last house on a dead end rural road
and the phone lines are so old they actually go through trees in a
couple places ( the wood has grown around the wires, over time.) The
phone repair guy once told me he had never seen worse or more spliced
lines BUT the phone company says they meet the minimum data transfer
required by regulations ( enough for a FAX machine, apparently ) and
there is no way they are going to replace a mile of line to make me
happy.

One thing I want to know is there an official difference between mb
and MB ... are these a million bits and a million bytes and is byte
8 times the data as bit. The people on the phones seem to use
"megabit" and "megabyte" interchangeably but I think that is
wrong .... are most advertised speeds in bits or bytes?

TIA,again

A byte is officially 8 bits, Mb is the accepted notation for Megabits, and MB
is Megabytes. From a utility viewpoint, throughput is most readily compared in
bits per second.

I don't know that there actually are any "regulations" on minimum phone line
quality - or what entity would enforce them if there were any. Does the FCC
give a crap about such matters - when there isn't any sort of competition to
regulate in the first place? (can you pick from more than one phone company? I
can't).

If one wants to play keyboard commando over voice-grade lines (which only need
about 2 kilohertz of bandwidth to do their job adequately) one must accept the
condition of the playing field.

As for "people on the phones", with remarkably few exceptions you can safely
count on them all to be script-reading idiots, and no matter how little you
think you know about anything, they'll know less...

On Dec 16, 6:42*pm, Larry L wrote:
On Dec 16, 3:18*pm, personaobscura
wrote:



On Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:45:10 -0800 (PST), Larry L
wrote:

My kid is moving back home while he waits to head off to grad
school. * In the mean time he has three jobs, two of which are as
research assistants for professors and apparently require lots of time
on the Internet.

So, I guess we're in the market for a fast connection. * *Nothing
"wired" is available out here and I'm trying to figure out the
differences between "radio" and satellite wireless providers.

Currently my little tray icon says 26.4 kbps and I'm also trying to
get a feel for how much faster 1.5 megabyte/sec is and how that should
be abbreviated ... MB/sec *MBps *mbps mb/sec etc etc. * *I thought I
knew some of this stuff but it's many many years since I had any real
interest in puters and my "knowledge: has evaporated. *After thumbing
through 3 wireless ISP companies brochures I'm even more confused than
my norm.

TIA

Well, the math is simple enough: if you really can achieve 1.5 Megabytes per
second on a wireless WAN connection available in your location, that's nearly
500 times higher throughput than your 26.4 Kilobit dial-up connection
provides.

From a utility viewpoint, that's a humongous enabler. Indeed, in this era,
your dialup connection is not far removed from Marconi's time wrt
practicality. Just saying...

I know how bad my current connection is, I've been trying years to get
something done about it. * I'm the last house on a dead end rural road
and the phone lines are so old *they actually go through trees in a
couple places ( the wood has grown around the wires, over time.) * The
phone repair guy once told me he had never seen worse or more spliced
lines *BUT the phone company says they meet the minimum data transfer
required by regulations ( enough for a FAX machine, apparently ) and
there is no way they are going to replace a mile of line to make me
happy.

One thing I want to know is there an official difference between mb
and MB * ... are these a million bits and a million bytes and is byte
8 times the data as bit. * * The people on the phones seem to use
"megabit" and "megabyte" interchangeably but I think that is
wrong .... are most advertised speeds in bits or bytes?

TIA,again

Larry, from what I gather from your post, your telephone line is not
adequate for a DSL high speed connection, (hell, it sounds like you
can't even get full speed out of your dial up connection).
Seems to me like you have a couple of choices. First, is there cable
TV (Comcast, Charter, etc) available in your area? If so, they could
provide you with a high speed internet connection. You wouldn't have
to get cable TV, the connection is available separately. Lacking that,
it would seem like a satellite connection would be the next,although
more expensive, choice. Hughsnet is the best known, but there are
others. Don't get hung up on the numbers. If you're far out in the
boonies, your choices will be very limited, and any high speed service
you get will be hundreds of times faster than your dial up.

On Thu, 16 Dec 2010 19:55:49 -0800 (PST), george9219
wrote:

If you're far out in the
boonies, your choices will be very limited, and any high speed service
you get will be hundreds of times faster than your dial up.

That, my good man, is true!

Fred

Larry, from what I gather from your post, your telephone line is not
adequate for a DSL high speed connection, (hell, it sounds like you
can't even get full speed out of your dial up connection).


I have to get wireless and there seem to be two types available ....
satellite and "radio"


Both setups require a fairly hefty setup cost for antennas and such
and contracts, of course, so I want to make sure I have a decent idea
what to expect for the $$$

On Thu, 16 Dec 2010 20:58:25 -0800 (PST), Larry L
wrote:



Larry, from what I gather from your post, your telephone line is not
adequate for a DSL high speed connection, (hell, it sounds like you
can't even get full speed out of your dial up connection).


I have to get wireless and there seem to be two types available ....
satellite and "radio"


Both setups require a fairly hefty setup cost for antennas and such
and contracts, of course, so I want to make sure I have a decent idea
what to expect for the $$$

I'd avoid satellite if possible, especially systems using geosynchronous
birds, as the round trip transport latency alone is nearly a full second, and
that can be surprisingly aggravating to both applications (eg: Skype) and
users. And while systems based on low earth orbit birds have 1/100th the
latency, they suffer from pathetic throughput (well under 100 Kbits/sec) and
can have coverage issues (mountains).

If radio frequency two-way service is available with download throughput in
the 12 Mbit/sec range you cited earlier, that'll likely be the best bang for
the buck.

I'd avoid satellite if possible, especially systems using geosynchronous
birds, as the round trip transport latency alone is nearly a full second, and
that can be surprisingly aggravating to both applications (eg: Skype) and
users. And while systems based on low earth orbit birds have 1/100th the
latency, they suffer from pathetic throughput (well under 100 Kbits/sec) and
can have coverage issues (mountains).

If radio frequency two-way service is available with download throughput in
the 12 Mbit/sec range you cited earlier, that'll likely be the best bang for
the buck.

All that seems to coincide with what I've determined through my
research ( including here ) and I have pretty much decided on a radio
system with the tower not that far from here as crows navigate. The
service is advertised as 1.5Mbps max and they were honest enough to
tell that wasn't what I'd really get ( but in "that vicinity" )

I'm probably going to have to have the antenna put on our shop ( we
have a tile roof on the house and they won't go there ) and that is
going to involve some trenching between the shop and home for the
cables ( more expense :-( ).

I'd never do this just from my own use. Indeed I go "off line" for
months each year and the absence of Internet and TV is one of the
biggest perks of my summers. However, I "play" automobile racing
simulations and back when the Net was young and everyone was on dial-
up used to race online against people world wide ( including a few
real world very well known race drivers ) and administer leagues for
same. As the quality of the average connection went up the bad
effects of my poor lag started to stand out and I eventually gave up
the online stuff several years ago. They are telling me that there
is a reasonable chance the radio connection will provide a "real time
gaming" suitable connection and I admit to finding that a tiny bit
exciting. The quality of racing simulations has improved to the
point where they are actually being used by real world teams for
'practice' much as simulations are used to help train pilots and
such .... I'd like to be able to try some of the cutting edge stuff.
I'm not too hopeful about any wireless connection for this....but ...
what the heck, I've factored that into my decision??

Anyway, personaO, I thank you for the info

On Dec 16, 5:42*pm, Larry L wrote:
On Dec 16, 3:18*pm, personaobscura
wrote:





On Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:45:10 -0800 (PST), Larry L
wrote:

My kid is moving back home while he waits to head off to grad
school. * In the mean time he has three jobs, two of which are as
research assistants for professors and apparently require lots of time
on the Internet.

So, I guess we're in the market for a fast connection. * *Nothing
"wired" is available out here and I'm trying to figure out the
differences between "radio" and satellite wireless providers.

Currently my little tray icon says 26.4 kbps and I'm also trying to
get a feel for how much faster 1.5 megabyte/sec is and how that should
be abbreviated ... MB/sec *MBps *mbps mb/sec etc etc. * *I thought I
knew some of this stuff but it's many many years since I had any real
interest in puters and my "knowledge: has evaporated. *After thumbing
through 3 wireless ISP companies brochures I'm even more confused than
my norm.

TIA

Well, the math is simple enough: if you really can achieve 1.5 Megabytes per
second on a wireless WAN connection available in your location, that's nearly
500 times higher throughput than your 26.4 Kilobit dial-up connection
provides.

From a utility viewpoint, that's a humongous enabler. Indeed, in this era,
your dialup connection is not far removed from Marconi's time wrt
practicality. Just saying...

I know how bad my current connection is, I've been trying years to get
something done about it. * I'm the last house on a dead end rural road
and the phone lines are so old *they actually go through trees in a
couple places ( the wood has grown around the wires, over time.) * The
phone repair guy once told me he had never seen worse or more spliced
lines *BUT the phone company says they meet the minimum data transfer
required by regulations ( enough for a FAX machine, apparently ) and
there is no way they are going to replace a mile of line to make me
happy.

One thing I want to know is there an official difference between mb
and MB * ... are these a million bits and a million bytes and is byte
8 times the data as bit. * * The people on the phones seem to use
"megabit" and "megabyte" interchangeably but I think that is
wrong .... are most advertised speeds in bits or bytes?

TIA,again

"Advertised" speeds are pretty much NOT what you will
get.....mostly.....depending. And yes, the difference between MB and
mb is exactly as you understand it. And no, the providers are not
very good about making the distinction clear. And no, it is not at
all likely that you are going to get the former rather than the
latter.....especially through phone lines.....at the end of a long
dead end rural road. If you really need (or want) high speed
internet, move to San Francisco or Minneapolis, and get cable.....or
an employer with a REALLY fast connection.

giles
from somewhere in the land of frozen internet pipes.