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Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
20,316
Location
west Texas
Display Name
Display name:
Dave Taylor
By that I mean an ISP that doesn't. Provide service that is.
How long do they get? What would you do?

Its a local company that has been sold to progressively bigger companies, 3 times now.
Last weekend the service was down over 40 hours.
There was no one answering the calls, we all just left messages. Their phone did not say, 'We know there is a problem and are working on it."

We called on Monday morning at 10am when they opened and they seemed unaware of the problem but it was going again by noon.

I suspect they had no clue of the outage and did not start working on it til they returned to the shop Monday am.

They have been told by many people in our small community how we are now dependant on it for many things and need some way to notify them, some mechanism to provide for after hours repairs.

We have them (a wireless service), any number of phone services, satellite available (about 2-3x the price), and the television (satellite) available.
I suspect the phone service will be very slow? and all of the others will be run by anonymous, unreachable big companies.
We were spoiled by the small companies, when I had a problem I could call Frank at home and he would take care of it.

Suggestions?
 
Without seeing the terrain and line of sight issues, I can't recommend putting up another wireless ISP as a co-op....but I've done it for rural towns that wanted their own services. Basically, you all chip in for a high speed connection to a real ISP in a nearby city then distribute it via wireless. Costs are very dependent on equipment choices for the wireless, circuit costs and ISP costs. I've worked with local schools that provided ISP services to their communities, too, at pretty low rates. It's basic (ie no e-mail, no special homepage, etc.) but works for those in the middle of nowhere (and I'm talking two hours to a decent size town here).
 
Brian Austin said:
Without seeing the terrain and line of sight issues, I can't recommend putting up another wireless ISP as a co-op....but I've done it for rural towns that wanted their own services. Basically, you all chip in for a high speed connection to a real ISP in a nearby city then distribute it via wireless. Costs are very dependent on equipment choices for the wireless, circuit costs and ISP costs. I've worked with local schools that provided ISP services to their communities, too, at pretty low rates. It's basic (ie no e-mail, no special homepage, etc.) but works for those in the middle of nowhere (and I'm talking two hours to a decent size town here).
Click to expand...

Been there, I think they have some excellent locations for LOS, but I cringe at the thought of what a T1 might cost way out there...

...Dave, why not got to bandwidth.com and ask for a quote?
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
When I do, they ask my 'type' and in a drop down menu, there are 20 choices, no term of which I recognize.
http://bandwidth.com/content/data?page=data_quote&selectedService=t1
Tks.
Click to expand...
T-1 or Frac T-1, depending on how many people will be "sharing" it. Don't bother with those places, though, since you're typically dealing with multiple brokers. Contact the local telco and ask how much a T-1 to the Internet will cost, no fringes. Find the nearest big town/city (on a scale larger than yours) and contact some of those ISPs that are operating in that area.

Let'sgoflying! said:
Is 40hrs outage industry-typical or should I be outraged? We had no natural disasters, they provided no reason.
Click to expand...
Forty hours is someone not paying attention to things and setting up a simple monitoring system. It's easy enough to do, even with open source or freeware.

I'd be ****ed.
 
SCCutler said:
Been there, I think they have some excellent locations for LOS, but I cringe at the thought of what a T1 might cost way out there...
Click to expand...
Actually, that's not bad compared to some T-1's I've put in. Odessa isn't too far and the railroads used to work with the utilities for right-of-ways. You might be surprised at the available circuits in the area. Telcos typically put in much more than they need.

There is probably a local CO around there somewhere. The most expensive portion of a T-1 is the local loop (to the CO). After that, you're just riding someone else's circuit.
 
Problem with a T1 is...they are too slow these days.

1.5 megabit = 1500/8 = 187 Kilobytes per second (this is what you would see downloading in your browser.

187 KB/S has some issues. You'd have to somehow throttle bandwidth for each user, otherwise, you'd have Jo-BOB downloading a file or two..and everyone else would be C R A W L I N G.

Streaming video would even be slightly annoying at 1.5 megabit..and I'm only talking one user.. Throw 100 people on 1.5 megabit...and well...you'd be better off with satalite internet (directway)

I wouldn't even want a T1 to my house. Sure my ports wouldn't be blocked ..and sure I would have a slightly faster upload speed. But it's just too slow.

3 megabit IMHO is about the min. these days. I really like my 6 megabit.
 
jangell said:
Problem with a T1 is...they are too slow these days.

1.5 megabit = 1500/8 = 187 Kilobytes per second (this is what you would see downloading in your browser.

187 KB/S has some issues. You'd have to somehow throttle bandwidth for each user, otherwise, you'd have Jo-BOB downloading a file or two..and everyone else would be C R A W L I N G.

Streaming video would even be slightly annoying at 1.5 megabit..and I'm only talking one user.. Throw 100 people on 1.5 megabit...and well...you'd be better off with satalite internet (directway)

I wouldn't even want a T1 to my house. Sure my ports wouldn't be blocked ..and sure I would have a slightly faster upload speed. But it's just too slow.

3 megabit IMHO is about the min. these days. I really like my 6 megabit.
Click to expand...
Reality check here: a T-1 is about ALL you'll get delivered in a small town. If cable and DSL was available, don't you think he would have already done it?

And I have no issues with the four T-1's I'm currently managing. It only gets bad when 30 of my users are connected to Citrix servers, plus a H.323 videoconferencing session is going on at 400kbps. Then I had to shut down our 7 streaming radio users. :D
 
Brian Austin said:
Reality check here: a T-1 is about ALL you'll get delivered in a small town. If cable and DSL was available, don't you think he would have already done it?

And I have no issues with the four T-1's I'm currently managing. It only gets bad when 30 of my users are connected to Citrix servers, plus a H.323 videoconferencing session is going on at 400kbps. Then I had to shut down our 7 streaming radio users. :D
Click to expand...
Just to throw in a few technical definitions for the folks at home...

A T-1 is essentially a connection consisting of 24 "voice" lines. Each voice line carries a data rate of 64 kilobits per second. 24 * 64kbps = 1536 kbps, or 1.536 Mbps. An additional 8 kbps is achieved with a framing bit (sampled 8000 times a second, which makes for 8000 bits, or 8kbps). So the final rate is 1.544 Mbps. This connection is also full duplex, meaning in theory that you can both send 1.544 Mbps of data while receiving 1.544 Mbps of data.

Ok, now onto this issue.

Unfortunately, as a residential customer, you get the shaft as far as service is concerned. The companies will almost always have a "best effort" clause in the service contract which informs you that your service is granted at the monthly rate at their best effort. Meaning if anything happens to your connection, you just have to deal with it until they can get around to it. Now most times they don't want to lose customers, so they'll get things fixed fairly quickly, but it also means they don't have to take your calls on weekends since they have no obligation to.

Businesses on the other hand, who rely on the uptime of the connection, will be able to have a dedicated connection that can be guaranteed for uptime, or will be given a phone number for 24 hour service.

Now for a comparison of prices.

My cable service is 3Mbps downstream and 386kbps upstream. I pay Northland Cable an exorbitant amount of money in the amount of 60$/month for this connection.

My University had a 3Mbps downstream and upstream connection (2 T1 lines) through SprintLink up until recently. Monthly rate (state contract) was about 2400$/month.

You can start to see where organizations like the university would make sure that for that amount, the connection had better stay up. Hopefully this helps the understanding of the wonderful world of cheap broadband. :) Sometimes you get lucky and have a provider who is great (TimeWarner in Florence, SC gave me 0 problems over 5 years of service.) but sometimes you get a provider who sucks (SimpleDSL in Greenwood, SC was prone to random outages and various network problems including high latency, partially due to the piggybacking off of Sprint's data lines). I've got someone in between right now (2 issues, resolved within 48 hours, and some billing issues) and I'm pretty happy. Just have to find someone who works well for you.
 
wbarnhill said:
Unfortunately, as a residential customer, you get the shaft as far as service is concerned. The companies will almost always have a "best effort" clause in the service contract which informs you that your service is granted at the monthly rate at their best effort. Meaning if anything happens to your connection, you just have to deal with it until they can get around to it. Now most times they don't want to lose customers, so they'll get things fixed fairly quickly, but it also means they don't have to take your calls on weekends since they have no obligation to.

Businesses on the other hand, who rely on the uptime of the connection, will be able to have a dedicated connection that can be guaranteed for uptime, or will be given a phone number for 24 hour service.
Click to expand...
Not so, depending on the carrier. I have a T-1 servicing the company owner's house. During the one outage, response time was less than an hour.

Besides, a CO-OP (as I suggested) is considered a business entity in most states.

wbarnhill said:
Now for a comparison of prices.

My cable service is 3Mbps downstream and 386kbps upstream. I pay Northland Cable an exorbitant amount of money in the amount of 60$/month for this connection.

My University had a 3Mbps downstream and upstream connection (2 T1 lines) through SprintLink up until recently. Monthly rate (state contract) was about 2400$/month.
Click to expand...
You're not reading the thread closely enough, apparently.

Comparing costs for cable/dsl service to T-1 service in this area isn't feasible because cable/dsl DOESN'T EXIST HERE. Sheesh.

And your university is getting shafted on costs (the downfall of running through state contracts, which I'm VERY familiar with). My company has two T-1's from XO. Total cost, including local loop: $1100/month.
 
Brian Austin said:
Not so, depending on the carrier. I have a T-1 servicing the company owner's house. During the one outage, response time was less than an hour.

Besides, a CO-OP (as I suggested) is considered a business entity in most states.


You're not reading the thread closely enough, apparently.

Comparing costs for cable/dsl service to T-1 service in this area isn't feasible because cable/dsl DOESN'T EXIST HERE. Sheesh.

And your university is getting shafted on costs (the downfall of running through state contracts, which I'm VERY familiar with). My company has two T-1's from XO. Total cost, including local loop: $1100/month.
Click to expand...

I think you misunderstood my post. A T-1 is considered a dedicated line and thus will be treated quite a bit better than Joe Jones with a Cable/DSL modem, whose connection isn't guaranteed. Part of the reason for the cost is because of that quality of service.

Now, before you slam into me again about mentioning Cable/DSL in this post, realize that I'm not specifically talking about YOUR town. The reference was made to help people understand that even though they may have a broadband connection, what they have is not comparable to business lines because there are other variables involved. Thus a wireless customer (such as Dave) who is not paying for a business connection, can only seek a better ISP when his does not live up to expectations.

Now if Dave IS paying for a business rated connection, then there's another issue altogether.

As far as my school being shafted, it was known for quite a while, but Sprint gave the school a couple of perks and those in charge (not us) decided it was worth it. Luckily, someone finally got through to them and we upgraded to a 9Mbps fiber connection through Spirit Telecommunications this past semester. 9Mbps dedicated, 10Mbps burst. About twice what we were paying Sprint for 3x the bandwidth. Spirit even ate the cost for the infrastructure (since fiber had to be run from their head end to our location).
 
wbarnhill said:
Now if Dave IS paying for a business rated connection, then there's another issue altogether.
Click to expand...
It still doesn't matter if the SLA doesn't specifically address the difference in connection types. Same with a T-1. It's a circuit, just like analog service to your house (two pairs instead of one, though). Whether or not it gets a better quality of service is dependent on the SLA, not the circuit type.
 
Brian Austin said:
Reality check here: a T-1 is about ALL you'll get delivered in a small town. If cable and DSL was available, don't you think he would have already done it?

And I have no issues with the four T-1's I'm currently managing. It only gets bad when 30 of my users are connected to Citrix servers, plus a H.323 videoconferencing session is going on at 400kbps. Then I had to shut down our 7 streaming radio users. :D
Click to expand...
Reality check. Throw a coop together driven by one T1. Put a bunch of people on it and tell them they have broadband now. I'd say if you did 30 (hell even 5 people downloading music) people it would become a problem during peak teams.

I'd be willing to bet my apartment building during peak times is consuming more than one megabit alone.

Problem is, you can't shut Joe Bob and Cindy Lou down because they are downloading a file or two and killing everyone else. If you did, they wouldn't be paying any longer.

I hate DirectWAY with a passion (Direct TV's satalite internet service) but it would be a better option then trying to form the coop (unless you formed it with like 5 people. Which would be a bit pricey)
 
jangell said:
Reality check. Throw a coop together driven by one T1. Put a bunch of people on it and tell them they have broadband now. I'd say if you did 30 (hell even 5 people downloading music) people it would become a problem during peak teams.

I'd be willing to bet my apartment building during peak times is consuming more than one megabit alone.

Problem is, you can't shut Joe Bob and Cindy Lou down because they are downloading a file or two and killing everyone else. If you did, they wouldn't be paying any longer.
Click to expand...
First, you're assuming everyone uses the Internet the way you do. They don't. ISPs base their bandwidth decisions on AVERAGE use, not power users. Been there, done that.

Second, What do you suppose the wireless ISP has hooked up to their landline feed? I'm betting it's not cable or DSL. If anything, it's a wireless backhaul to another site...that has a T-1.

Third, apartment complexes use more bandwidth because (1) their occupants are younger and more "Net savvy" and (2) they have high concentrations of separate accounts in a smaller area. Not apples to oranges here.

I've been doing network design, including ISPs and school systems, for almost ten years in a variety of areas. Comparing how YOU use the Internet to how the average Joe uses it is not a good way to make decisions like this.
 
We've reached the point where I feel nothing I can say can contribute to this thread. I'm out.
 
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