Slow, slow, slow.....

[seminolewind]

Someone once told me about a "Registry cleaner". It says that even know you delete stuff, it's still in your computer. So a good registry cleaner can help.

My son in law has a laptop, and when he needs to, his cell phone acts as a modem and it is fast. One night the electric went out, and there were 3 of us using his cell phone as a hot spot (?). We all remained on the web, with candlelight!

 

[wilbilt]

This is DSL through the local phone company. I am rural; TV is satellite only. When I moved here about 5 years ago, they were just making DSL available on this street. I believe they must have a lot of competition from cell phones because they have done things like given me free long distance (in the US) and I believe upgraded my DSL speed one notch for free. It's still 54mbps this morning.

Are you sure that is not the speed between your PC and your modem? DSL connections are generally 8-10 Mbps at best. Cable and fiber connections offer higher bandwidth. I am currently connected to my modem/router at 54 Mbps, but the router is connected to the outside world at 6.01 Mbps. You should be able to access your modem through a web interface; it should display what your actual internet connection speed is.

 

[wilbilt]

Someone once told me about a "Registry cleaner". It says that even know you delete stuff, it's still in your computer. So a good registry cleaner can help.

My son in law has a laptop, and when he needs to, his cell phone acts as a modem and it is fast. One night the electric went out, and there were 3 of us using his cell phone as a hot spot (?). We all remained on the web, with candlelight!

Cell reception here is pretty sporadic. I have a Blackberry phone on the Sprint network (due to needing Nextel for work) and it usually reverts to my home wi-fi as the cell signal is too weak. I tried a Verizon USB modem and it was practically useless as well due to poor signal strength. We have stayed online through various outages using our PV/battery/inverter backup to power the modem and laptops/other devices. The limiting factor is generally the duration of the batteries in the ATT RT hut. A bit less than 48 hours is the norm. They used to have a generator to power the RT, but it broke down and they hauled it off about 10 years ago. They never brought it back.

But I do agree; Internet by candlelight is pretty cool!

 

[seminolewind]

Wow, Wilbilt, you must live in the boonies! Or have some mountains in the way.

I would think satellite would be fast in good weather.

 

[gale65]

This is DSL through the local phone company. I am rural; TV is satellite only. When I moved here about 5 years ago, they were just making DSL available on this street. I believe they must have a lot of competition from cell phones because they have done things like given me free long distance (in the US) and I believe upgraded my DSL speed one notch for free. It's still 54mbps this morning.

Our dsl is through the local phone company too but we get "up to" 3 mbps. I think it runs around 2 most of the time. They offer 5 but it's too expensive. We recently upgraded from the 512 kbps plan and before that, we had dialup. So I guess I'll have to be happy with my 3 mbps. Luckily I've never experienced anything faster. We have satellite tv but companies like hughesnet don't even offer service in our area. Even if they did, it's slower than our last dsl for the cheapest package and it has a limit of a certain number of gb per month. I have a Virgin Mobile cellphone that uses Sprint towers. My phone automatically switches to wifi any time it's available. It only looks for a cell signal if there's no wifi.

 

[wilbilt]

Wow, Wilbilt, you must live in the boonies! Or have some mountains in the way.

I would think satellite would be fast in good weather.

Yes, I guess it is a bit remote. The nearest store or business of any kind is 10 miles away. Until a few years ago, it was dialup or 128k ISDN. I was paying $130/mo for ISDN, as I do a lot of work from home and need remote access to servers, etc. Satellite has too much latency to be very useful for that. It also rains a lot here in the winter, which affects the signal.

A few years ago, a lightning strike hit the phone lines between here and the central office 20 miles away. It fried the equipment in the remote terminal phone hut, and ATT replaced it with DSL-capable equipment connected via fiber to the CO. I consider the lightning strike to have been Divine Intervention, otherwise I would likely still be connected at 128kbps and paying way too much.

 

[Judy]

Quote:
1.74 Mbps upload, 0.64 download per speedtest.net. Is that what you mean? (You are not talking to a geek!)

 

[wilbilt]

1.74 Mbps upload, 0.64 download per speedtest.net. Is that what you mean? (You are not talking to a geek!)

Yes, that sounds more like a typical DSL connection speed.

 

[Judy]

Thanks. The stuff I learn here....

 

[seminolewind]

I can't understand having such low Mbp's . There must be something other than that to it.