Seeking Help

[Zahasha]

Hi Everyone,

Currently I have a dial up ISP. The phone lines run 8 miles above ground before going to underground cable. It is becoming more and more apparent that my lag issues are not improving. Packet lose and LD's are very common every time I play. My max connection speed is generally 37333 bps. With 36000 being normal.
I looked into cable and dsl, neither are available as I am too rurel.
Looked into wireless, but again at this time I am too far out.
I have spoken to Directway about satelite service. I was told they don't support "twitch" games like first person shooter games. Also if I went with satelite Macslayer and I would need to both work off it.. which I am told will reduce the preformance. There is also question about our home being too low into the valley to get the signal from the south.

Should I try the satelite? Upgrade my system some how to run better on Dial-up? Any suggestions???

Currently I am running........
Pentium 4 processor 1.5GHz w/256KB integrated full speed L2 cache
512 MB pc800 ram
80.OGB UltraDMA Hard drive
Nvidia Gforce 4 Ti4600
56k ITU V.90 modem
Sound Blaster PCI 128 audio card
Windows ME

Thanks for your Help!!
/Hugssssssssss
Zahasha
_________________


~* *~

"It is good to have an end to journey towards:
but it is the journey that matters in the end." ~Ursula K Le Guin

[Shiloch Veneficus]

I share your pain, Z.

I'm also too rural to use cable or DSL, and I've been toying with the idea of getting satellite.

From what I understand, there are two downfalls.
1. The connection will be not quite as stable as DSL or cable, in that atmospheric disturbance will cause outages, brief but long enough to cause disconnections.
2. It's expensive. 55-60/month at it's cheapest, satellite is the most expensive way to get internet service at home.

As far as being able to run multiple computers on it, it's supposedly quite a bit faster than both cable and DSL. DirecWay reports downstream of 48Mbps and a scalable upstream. Most cable modems run at 1.5Mbps for downstream and I think 128kpbs for upstream. Speed won't really be the issue, I fear. It will be the stability of the connection.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way for most rural customers to get high speed internet.

Here in Louisville, there are lots of rural areas that do have DSL service, Prospect, etc. I even think they were some of the first areas to receive DSL service. I think the reasoning behind it is the fact that these are high-class areas and would be the first ones to afford it. I can say from having to perform maintenance out there that while they might be the best paying customers, they're the least frequent users of it.

[Zahasha]

Thanks Shiloch!

Do you know anyone who plays EQ with a satelite system???
If so how do they feel about it??
How bad are the atmospheric interuptions?? Also what are the causes??
Just lightning storms or are there other causes??

Ya the cost would be actually a little less for us now as we run three telephone lines into the house and have two dial up accts. We could drop two phone lines and the ISP dial ups. (apx $80 month for our addiction!)Just the start up fee of apx $600 for installation and equiptment is a killer!! All is refundable if not satisified after 30 days except the $100 installation fee.

Do you still use dial up Shiloch??

Thanks again for your help!

/Hugssssssssss
Zahasha
_________________


~* *~

"It is good to have an end to journey towards:
but it is the journey that matters in the end." ~Ursula K Le Guin

[Shiloch Veneficus]

Unforunately, I don't know of anyone offhand who plays EQ on satellite.

I think there's more than just lightning storms that can cause it to go out. I don't actually have it myself, so I can't be certain. I've talked to people who use the service for TV, and that's their biggest complaint. It blips in and out at times, for whatever reason.

I've heard from a couple of people that satellite is very fast, but seems to respond slowly at first. There's a bit of logic here that might explain why.

On cable, you're probably not any greater than 10 miles or so from where your signal ends. Since electrial signals travel across a wire at the speed of light (theoretically), it only takes a fraction of a second to go this distance for a single packet.

On satellite, you're somewhere around 22,000 miles from the orbitting dish, which is another 22,000 miles from where the signal ends. If you consider that TCP/IP is connection-oriented and for every packet you send, you get an acknowledgement of transmission, your first breath of communication has to travel 88,000 miles before you can communicate. While this really won't be more than just a second or two in reality, it's humanly possible to detect the difference in time it takes light to go 88,000 miles from 10 miles.

I guess monthly it WILL be cheaper for you. I didn't realize you had two lines and two dial-up accounts. I think the equipment charges bite, that would make the decision tough for me especially when I'm not quite sure how well it's going to work.

Tyranimus has more experience with this kind of stuff than I do, I'll ask him to stop by here and provide a little insight.

And yes, I'm still using a dial-up.

[Zahasha]

I guess I need to talk to folks who have satelite service for EQ.
I am aware that a big sun spot can shut electricity down and assume they also cause problems with satelite service.
One of the blessings of living in this little valley on the side of a small mountain is less microwaves! To the south of me is lots of wilderness and little development. Folks who have cell phones have a rough time using them at my home which makes me wonder about getting satelite service.

Thanks for asking Tyra to also repsond to my questions.

Take care!
Zahasha
_________________


~* *~

"It is good to have an end to journey towards:
but it is the journey that matters in the end." ~Ursula K Le Guin

[ElSancho]

When I first moved to MI we had dial up aswell, then I called DriectTV, Im not sure but I think its more or less the same as DirectWay. We never had the internet through them but Im going to assume the bandwith is about the same for either signals. We had only about 3 or 4 day (and this was back when we had all the huge solar flares from the sun) that I ever noticed in drop in quality. wind, snow, rain, nothing really bad in the way of interference. Our cable is about 50$ a month so 55-60$ isnt all that bad but definately more then dial-up.
_________________
retired...
future ADD warcraft player