Free Equipment Removal and Russian Santa

Oh, I forgot to mention: Anyone in the country who has a clear view of the southern sky can get HughesNet satellite internet at 15 Mbps. The cost isn't worth it, again, unless you have a business reason and no other decent service. It's around $130/month.

Reply to
Ed Huntress
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The population of NY state is 19.75 million. The combined population of NYC, Westchester County, and Long Island is 17.0 million. 101 Mbps service is offered by Optimum all the way out to Montauk Point and residential 150 Mbps (500 Mbps if you want to spring for another $100/mo) all the way up to Peekskill by Verizon FIOS. In NYC, you can get 335 Mbps in residences, or more from some providers.

If you live in Shrub Oak, it's a little more difficult, but you can get it.

You were saying?

Without knowing where you live, I can't comment. But see my reply to Leon. He's a real outlier, even in his county.

There is very precise data on Internet access if you want to look for it. I was just tossing out a quick response to Leon's address, which he identifies as Grand Rapids. It's not Grand Rapids. He lives in a mostly rural area 12 miles outside of town.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Oh you've got me pegged pretty close there :)

Cable comes up short in several directions. There is also a small Telephone Co just to my north-west that has some cool stuff. Coopersville is in a unique position. About halfway in between Muskegon and Grand Rapids. Also I-96 Expressway goes right by it. Businesses have been setting up shop there for years now hoping to split the difference.

I grew up here so it wasn't a conscious choice of being "rural" or not. Just never found a reason to move elsewhere. I knew pretty much everyone (their names) within a four square mile radius when I was a kid. Not so much anymore. It would be even less rural if zoning easily allowed less than ten acre lots. Either a big farmer has it now or it has been chopped up...

AT&T has claimed (they tried to up-sell me when I went with a local DSL provider) they can give me 6 Mbps U-verse. Neighbor's have been begging them for it and they tell me 1.5 Mbs is all they offer out here. Now who should I believe ;-)

Reply to
Leon Fisk

Your neighbor . We had a long-running battle in Memphis with AT&T over uverse . They were claiming they were providing us with 1.5Mb service and billing for it . The best I ever got from their connection was under 768k , and more often was 350k or less . Even when their tech came out and verified the rate , they tried to overcharge us . Demanded and got a reduction and some rebate , then told them to shove their uverse service where the light don't shine .

Reply to
Terry Coombs

I vaguely remember the area. I lived in Lansing, my girlfriend lived in Greenville, and we often drove out I-96 to Grand Haven. I remember liking it a lot.

When it comes to DSL, believe your eyes. I was so glad when our cable company introduced Internet service 15 years ago and I was able to drop Verizon DSL. It was unreliable and generally stunk.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Those BIG companies can be a BIG PAIN when it comes to billing and solving any kind of abnormal problem. Especially when it makes them look bad or reduces their take.

I download stuff pretty regularly. In fact I had a goodly sized download going just now. If the speed (my browser shows download speeds) is running around 150 kbps then I know I have the 1.5 mb connection I'm paying for. I don't leave my modem up all the time. If I'm not using the net I unplug it. It only takes a couple minutes for it to power up, come online so it's no big deal. About the same amount of time for the computer to boot.

I have caught the modem/connection being downgraded to 768 kbps. When that happens you have to either unplug the modem or get into its setup page and force it to re-handshake (my term, forget the technical one for it) the connection. I'm sure there are a lot of customers that have no idea this is going on. Their modems are powered up 24/7 and their applications don't display transfer speeds. I don't put much faith in the "test your speed sites". They really have no way to know for sure what is happening at your computer. Just what they are pumping out in your direction...

My modem is an older model but capable of higher DSL speeds than what is currently available to me here right now.

Reply to
Leon Fisk

You only missed me by about a mile then. I can hear the highway noise on quiet days when I step outside :)

I use to ride my bicycle out to Grand Haven pretty regular for exercise. Only once or twice a year I would venture as far as the State Park, which was probably your destination back then. It is one of the States busiest parks nowadays. You probably wouldn't recognize it anymore...

My old dial up provider (iserv) had the DSL offering I'm currently using. It's on the AT&T system. They buy it from AT&T somehow and then re-sell it. So I didn't have to change my email address and I already liked the outfit.

What really annoys me with AT&T is they have been trying to get me to upgrade to one of their packages for at least 3 years now, maybe even longer. They send the info every month with the phone bill plus one separate mailing in between. So that's twice a month. They tell you how much you will save and the Intro rate plus? I want to know what the monthly cost will be after the honeymoon is over with all the added fees. They can't/won't tell you that. Which makes one wonder how they can calculate the monthly bill then ;-)

Neighbors I've asked have cell phone bundles and other weird stuff and really don't know what they are paying for DSL. I'm sure AT&T likes it that way. Keep everyone confused...

Reply to
Leon Fisk

13475 is the closest zip. But Verizon isn't in my area. We have Frontier. The fastest the system supports here is 8mbps. Will never get faster without major upgrades, which won't happen.

I'm farther out than that.

Reply to
Steve W.

I'll trade you, I have cell service as long as I stand by one window in the house, Go outside and there is a spot inline with that window where you have service.

Reply to
Steve W.

That unit will handle that just fine. Toss some chunks in the basket, slide it into the middle of the firebox and fire it up. Then prep your meat as it warms up. That way you are smoking ASAP and you don't get the taste of the initial fire. That upper switch shuts the burner and fan down when you open the top. They are a great unit. You will want to clean it real well, then fire just the gas to dry it out. You can find these in a lot of places, they are also popular with the competition folks. Bolt it to a trailer with a propane tank and a wood box and you're set to go.

Reply to
Steve W.

I hung the Broadband2Go modem up near the ceiling on a USB extension cable.

Could be worse, I couldn't solve my antenna reception problems with the local TV station until I bought a spectrum analyzer that could distinguish low signal strength from multipath. The antenna is actually aimed at the cleanest reflection.

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Near the end ProjectSHO89 posted a photo of a channel distorted by destructive interference from multipath reflections and a flat-topped clean one. Each channel is 6 MHz wide on the horizontal frequency axis, and the vertical scale looks like 10 dB of signal strength per line.

-jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Looking at the map, offhand, I would expect you'll be waiting a while.

I see. Well, you have Cuomo's effort to have 100 Mbps throughout New York state in a couple of years. 'Dunno how that's going, although NYC is going gangbusters to have gigabit wifi throughout the five boroughs.

To me, it reminds me of Rural Electrification in the '30s, and rural telephone a bit later. They were federal mandates and the idea was that the whole country benefits by making those services available to everyone.

I doubt if that will happen again. But a few states will do it, and maybe satellite service, like HughesNet, may fill in the gaps.

The gaps would be you and Leon. d8-)

Reply to
Ed Huntress

We have higher, but the fiber bundle that tunnels under my driveway and has a up/down link between drive ways won't be connecting to our house. That large bundle (big enough for most small towns) is for the school ONLY. And the limited use they use it for. Outrageous waste of bandwidth. We also pay for 6MBPS and get 5.5 at the very best. They bandwidth limit our accounts and use the level we pay at as the clamp high end and the low end at 5.5. They use 10% of my bandwidth to keep me from exceeding the pay level I pay for.

It is about time for class action suits to force them to use their side and give us 6.5 for a while and then 6.0 as we have paid for for years.

Mart> Ed Huntress wrote:

Reply to
Martin Eastburn

OK, great to know. I will indeed dry it out. I already started cleaning it.

Wait a minute, this is a natural gas unit? It need to be converted to propane somehow, cannot just be hooked up?

i
Reply to
Ignoramus2941

They can be ordered either way. The side plate will tell you which way your's is set up. If it's NG and you have NG available, you're good to go. No conversion.

Hope to see pictures of the first batch....

Reply to
Steve W.

Yeah, It's sort of low priority for the companies.

Yeah, I know folks with Hughes, most think it is crap. Being that it's under Echostar like Dish net I can understand that....

Reply to
Steve W.

Forgot to mention, point out this house for sale in the Grand Haven area yesterday.

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Just in case you were thinking about moving in this direction. It would make a nice starter place for you and the wife ;-)

Reply to
Leon Fisk

Good grief. All that to house his bible collection.

It is a beautiful house. The caretaker's cottage is probably twice the size of mine.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

I can't relate to that stuff at all... but in skimming the article I noted they tore down the $7.5m house in 2004:

"Van Kampen's $7.5 million home on the property was demolished in 2004 after it failed to sell in the wake of his death in 1999..."

As mentioned in another thread you got to watch out for those fish sign people :)

Reply to
Leon Fisk

The difference is the size of the gas jets, Ig. Natural gas is under much less pressure, hence a larger jet. I had to rejet a nat gas to propane when I lived in Vista in the '70s. That old beastie will be in my heart forever. Huge chrome griddle, 4 burners (one thermostatic) separate broiler with infinitely adjustable height, one oven. Just like this:

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Anyway, jets are cheap ($5-ish), available, and easy to replace. They screw on/off.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

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