[olug] Interet Service Options

[Daniel Linder]

> I just moved to a new house, however we are not out of range of Cox and
> DSL. Do any of you use either Wireless or Satellite Internet providers
> and how do you rate their costs and service?

I'll agree with the other poster who said that Satellite was "sluggish"
when using for interactive sessions (telnet/ssh) but good if you are just
web surfing.  I can't remember what the one-time costs were for the
satellite system, but I think my parents got a signup deal and got the
dish and electronics for "free" after a one year comittment.

Unfortunatly, I can't really say how good wireless is for home use from
the providers in the Omaha metro area.  I have worked with the technical
people from a number of wireless providers in the area and the problems I
heard them talking about were always line-of-sight problems or frequency
congestion (i.e. a new wireless provider sets up shop in the same area as
your antenna and neither of your customers can get through).  Since the
802.11 wireless standard is unregulated, there is nothing stating that I
can't put up an antenna on my roof and pumping the maximum allowable
wattage (within FCC regs) and killing another customer who happens to have
my antenna directly in his line of sight.  The one-time costs I heard
quoted for the home antenna and relatd equipment was around $200.

My father has DSL through AllTel and likes it quite well.  Once they got
some bad wireing fixed up it seems quite stable.  One-time cost for the
DSL modem was "free" for my father when he signed up under a special deal
they had 9 months ago.

I've had Cox cable for the past 3+ years and really love it.  The speeds
are fine for my usage (I downloaded the Mandrake 9.2 iso's from an FTP
site in Indiana and was getting 350KByte/sec).  I don't do any real
hosting from my house so I don't know what the up-stream speeds are like. 
I haven't used the 'Other' cable company in town (QWest TeleChoice?) so I
can't speak to their service.  One-time costs for the cable-modem are
roughly $50 at most electronics places.

In short, I'd rank them in this order:
Rank  Provider                One-time cost estimate
1     Cox Cablemodem          $40-50
2     DSL                     $30-50
3     802.11-based wireless   $150-200
4     Satellite               $50-150

Dan