What type of internet connection do you have?

[Joe Baker]

I voted DSL Low Speed, which is what I use at home. At work we've got a T1 or better, but I've never bothered to ask exactly what. I don't get a lot of media or game content, so only on rare long downloads do I notice an appreciable difference.
__________________________
Joe Baker, who could get DSL High Speed for about $8 a month more, but doesn't see the need.

[Doug@GT]

I picked T3 because that's what I had until I moved off-campus, and the no-votes made it seem lonely. Using High-speed dsl now in the apt, but the 'rents still have dial-up at home.

[Dan Schultz]

Dial-up. There are many services available here but most of them want to sell a package that includes internet, cable, phone, etc.. I don't do sports, sit-coms, or movies so there is no need for cable. I use a cellular phone for my primary communication mode.

Big attachments are never a problem because I screen most of my email through an email client my ISP provides. I can delete 'em before they have a chance to load. If something looks interesting, I can click on it and go to the kitchen for a fresh cup of coffee.

Yep.... dial-up internet and Public Broadcasting suit me just fine

[ThomasDodd]

T1 at work, where I do most browsing, and other internet things.

Free dial-up from home to a server at the office, but my lines suck, so I seldom get the 33.6kbps I should. Wrong place on the line for 56k to work, and no DSL option.

So homw is for quick email checks, and the ocasional auction watch.

[Lew]

I have used a cable modem since about 1997 (I was in one of the early broadband experimental areas), and I can't imagine life on dialup. I currently get between 4 and 6 Mbps.

[bort]

Cable all the way. Hell, I don't even have a phone line (cell phone only).

[ThomasDodd]

I won't even consider cable here. I absolutely refuse to give our cable provider any more of my hard earned money than neccessary.

I don't want them any close to my house than the poles on the side of the road. My place has never had cable, and never willhave their wire running to my house.

Given past experience with their "service" I doubt the networking offer would be very usefull. I have better things to dio than wait around for them to show up when the cable goes down.

[Chuck(G)]

DSL, because that's what I can get--no cable here. I looked into satellite, but I'd have to log the trees to the south of me on the hope that I might get decent reception.

After ditching the extra phone line and the local ISP, I was actually able to lower my cost by going with DSL and the "we don't give you anything but an IP address" service. With an inexpensive web-hosting package, I get unlimited email accounts and a bunch of features for far less than any of the local iSP's charge.

But I note that the US is on the trailing edge of DSL technology. Several countries in Europe and the Far East offer ADSL hookups with 8 Mb downstream speed for about the same that I pay for 1.5 Mb.

The 24x7 service is nice; I have an FM transmitter attached to the server here, so I don't have to put up with the poor selection of local radio stations.

[ThomasDodd]

DSL, because that's what I can get--no cable here. I looked into satellite, but I'd have to log the trees to the south of me on the hope that I might get decent reception.

Not true. You could alwas mount the dish higher. When installing C-band dishes, I installed many tall poles. One of the tallest was 20ft up, had guy-wires for stability, and used 3 different diameter of pipe welded together. It can be done, but don't expect any of the crappy "installation and service" contractors used by DishNetwork or DirectTV to know how. Most don't even know what azimuth and elevation mean, just some number from the system (based on zipcode) thay adjust on the mount. The new system that look at 3 birds at once pring dclination angles into the mix and they are really lost.

Not all, but most of those guys are temps, waiting for a better job. Their trainging is watching a video tape, and mayby assisting on 2-3 installes by someone with a little experience. About on par with the cable-guy.

But DSL is a better service if you can get it. Some of us cannot.

[CJ Krause]

yup

[Chuck(G)]

Not true. You could alwas mount the dish higher. When installing C-band dishes, I installed many tall poles. One of the tallest was 20ft up, had guy-wires for stability, and used 3 different diameter of pipe welded together. It can be done, but don't expect any of the crappy "installation and service" contractors used by DishNetwork or DirectTV to know how. Most don't even know what azimuth and elevation mean, just some number from the system (based on zipcode) thay adjust on the mount. The new system that look at 3 birds at once pring dclination angles into the mix and they are really lost..

Maybe when you're thinking of "trees", you have in mind those nice compact oaks, maples and whatever. I'm talking about mature Douglas-fir here--to get above the treeline, I'd have to go up more than 100'. I'm not ready for that.

[ThomasDodd]

Not true. You could alwas mount the dish higher. When installing C-band dishes, I installed many tall poles. One of the tallest was 20ft up, had guy-wires for stability, and used 3 different diameter of pipe welded together. It can be done, but don't expect any of the crappy "installation and service" contractors used by DishNetwork or DirectTV to know how. Most don't even know what azimuth and elevation mean, just some number from the system (based on zipcode) thay adjust on the mount. The new system that look at 3 birds at once pring dclination angles into the mix and they are really lost..

Maybe when you're thinking of "trees", you have in mind those nice compact oaks, maples and whatever. I'm talking about mature Douglas-fir here--to get above the treeline, I'd have to go up more than 100'. I'm not ready for that.

Depeds on how close they are to the house. Trigonometry to the rescue. You put the pole on the north/east side by the trees, and look south west over the house and trees. I wasn't thinking any particular tree type. 100' up for a mini-dish? They tend to look pretty high around here, not like lower bird on the C-band dishes.

But yeah, I'd be apprehensive about a 100ft high mount. Hard to keep it stable too. A real issue for the transmit side. (Satellite internet can be bidirectional, or use a phone line going out)

The hardest part is figuring out just how high to go. Getting 20-30 feet in the air to check for a clear LOS (line of sight) isn't easy. Working out all the trig to calculate it isn't much easier.

One place I lived, I mounted the dish just under the lowest limbs of an old cedar tree at the edge of the yard. I had to trim lower branches on that cedar once or twice. I barely cleared a tree in another yard 3 house south and 1 street west. In fact during summer storms, another tree would blow into the LOS, and degrade the signal a lot. Of course rain fade was more often a problem, so I didn't care to move the dish.

[Chuck(G)]

Several countries in Europe and the Far East offer ADSL hookups with 8 Mb downstream speed for about the same that I pay for 1.5 Mb.

That reminds of the old joke about the butcher who said (responding to a customer's price quote of a competitor), "...well, our pork chops are only 89 cents a pound...but we're out of pork chops right now "

http://www.internettrafficreport.com/main.htm

Actually, more to the point:



I guess the good news is that we're ahead of France...but the bad news is that it's a lot easier to get pork chops in Canada.