ISP Broadband - my solution

I posted this on our local neighborhood blog - didn't edit the part about using the tower I do.

Also, I got the Business Plan - a bit better than residential. $50 a mo with unlimited data for 6 mo, then goes to $20 more for the remainder of the 3-yr contract. Install was free, so was the hardware.

I have been SO PO'd at Century Link with their attitude that they are the only game in town so suck up and tolerate them. Nice appreciation that I have been a Bell System customer for 47 years. CL is a Baby Bell; having divested from AT&T Bell telephone as Qwest in approx '84. I used to be a software engineer for AT&T as well. So we have their BLINDING SPEED DSL, have for years, that averages around 2.2Mbps down, around 400K up - they actually told me they are OVERDELIVERING what they promised - it's supposed to be 5Mbps, and if you check the modem's front page apparently it is - reports nominal 6.4M down 800k up. But the actual yield at speedtest.net is a third of that. So I noticed really poor bandwidth in April and benchmarked it - the modem reported 4096k down, 640k up - whereas before it had been 7000 down, 1200 up. I got on the horn to TS at CL and after talking to a number of people I was finally connected to "Aaron" who let it slip that a "throttling" order has been applied to my connection, specifically 4096k down, 640k up. About half the speed the modem had been delivering - and the modem confirmed this is the speed it was running. I looked that up - it turns out that many ISP's monitor the speed of your use and if they think you are using too much bandwidth, they may "throttle" your connection. (google it you will find the same) I talked to several other CS people - no one would admit what happened - betcha they had a "talk" with Aaron for letting that internal memo slip.

My wife telecommutes, works for a telecomm company. With this throttling, the connection became useless for her - could no longer conduct phone meetings over VOIP as her signal was constantly cutting out, dropping packets and her meetings became useless. She had to stop telecommuting and drive into work.

Thank you Century Link. This great service for about $110/mo bundle ISP and landline phone. I conducted a survey of my friends on a national blog - what kind of connection, what speed delivered, what companies, for what price. With about 20 responses, average speed was around 80M down, with prices a third of what I pay. MY service was the VERY WORST of the responses.

Having looked here, and elsewhere for some better soln, I saw your posts about Rise Broadband. It's microwave based, not a landline or cell. Requires line-of-sight to their tower. Crap! We are in a hole here in the Flintwood Hills, the only tower I can see is 1.7 mi North; can see the red beacon at night from the hot tub. I'm thinking, if that's the tower, we're In Like Flint - otherwise - this is futile. I called for an install - told the tech, first we need to see if we have a signal here. He said "No problem - that's the tower right there! "

Ye-HAW!!!

I asked, the tech said connecivity starts to drop off at about 8 miles. Not affected much by snow like DISH, the antennae points more down, snow slides off unless it's really wet and driven. Not a problem.

OK so we are connected, I am getting consistent 24M down, around 10M up - that's TEN TIMES faster than CL down, TWENTY TIMES up!!!!

SO. The bottom line here is, if you are in the Flintwood Hills, have I got a bandwidth connecting tower for you! (If not, I don't know where the other towers are, but I would sure give Rise a call if I were you.)

If you can see the tower at 39.420678 -104.654653 , that is 38657 Cnty Rd 5 - within 8 miles, you definitely can get Rise Broadband and start connecting at about 24M down, around 10M up.

And tell Century Link to go POUND SAND! I will soon after this soaks for a little bit & I'm happy with it.