I live on the edge of a small village and for the last 5 years my internet connection has been provided by a wireless ISP. I have a radio on my roof with a high gain antenna that is pointed at a silo about 3 km away. This system has given me good service. It's is a 900 MHz radio with a max advertised download speed of 3 Mbps. Using various speeds tests I get usually get between 1 and 2 Mbps. The speed varies over the day and are slowest in the evening persumably due to traffic. As a bench mark my service is too slow for Netflix to work in the evenings. However even with the uneven speed issues the continuity of the service has been good as I am rarely without service, even during bad weather. Recently DSL has become available to me as well. It is from a different company but they have a good rep and they can offer me a bundled package that would include home phone and internet service. I could transfer my current land line # to them and the bundled package would be around $15 less per month then I am paying now for phone and internet. Their advertised max download speed is 5 Mbps. I am seriously considering making the switch because I would like to get enough of a speed improvement to get Netflix going and I'm hoping the with DSL I will not see the slowdowns that I currently get with my wireless system. Has anyone gone from wireless to DSL before who could offer some comments? The cost savings would be nice but I'd really like to hear how DSL compares to wireless from a speed and reliability point of view. Thanks.
Move from Wireless to DSL Question
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I would try DSL for 1 month first before cancelling your wireless ISP service. DSL performance is largely dependant to the distance between your home and the Bell central office (or remote). You will not get good service if the distance is close to 5 km or over. The quality of your phone lines may also impact your DSL performance.
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Try talking to your neighbours that have DSL to see what their typical speed is. The speeds should be about the same whether they get it through the telco or a third party since the telco actually provides the infrastructure. DSL speeds are usually consistent regardless of the time of day and should be at least as reliable as wireless.
Thanks for the replies. We are close to the Bell office, probably less then 1Km as the crow flies. My in-house wiring is a concern. The house was built in 1961 and the phone jack is in the kitchen while my computer, router and the wireless connection point is on the other side of the house. Probably will need to get the phone jack moved. The 1 month trial is a good idea, I think I'll ask if we can do that. Thanks
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^^^^
As I mentioned in my earlier note, it's not the distance "as the crow flies" that's important, it's the cable length, which will likely be longer. As for your jacks, you don't want to move the one you have. Simply install more jacks where you need them. This will give you the opportunity to separate the ADSL signal from the phone line and run it on it's own pair to where you need it. This way, you'll only need one ADSL filter, instead of one at each phone. 3 pair CAT 3 cable is commonly used for phones, but many people run 4 pair CAT 5 instead.
As I mentioned in my earlier note, it's not the distance "as the crow flies" that's important, it's the cable length, which will likely be longer. As for your jacks, you don't want to move the one you have. Simply install more jacks where you need them. This will give you the opportunity to separate the ADSL signal from the phone line and run it on it's own pair to where you need it. This way, you'll only need one ADSL filter, instead of one at each phone. 3 pair CAT 3 cable is commonly used for phones, but many people run 4 pair CAT 5 instead.
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^^^^
My experience, based on helping others with Bell and also business installs, is you get the modem in the mail and you're supposed to connect it. No one shows up, unless it's a new line with no existing jack. Commercial customers don't get much better.
My experience, based on helping others with Bell and also business installs, is you get the modem in the mail and you're supposed to connect it. No one shows up, unless it's a new line with no existing jack. Commercial customers don't get much better.
Interesting side note about this. According to Bell DSL is not available for my number from them however the third party company can provide DSL service to me. There is a Bell builting just outside our village and it is generally known that the hardware in that building is serving the area. The general thinking was that DSL would come to our area when Bell installed the necassary hardware in that building. Most have given up waiting and went the wireless route as I did several years ago. When speaking to the CSR at the third party company they stated that they are a small telco themselves and have installed the necassary hardware required to make DSL possible. I assume this hardware must have been installed in the Bell building so while DSL service is availalbe the third party telco is the only provider. I don't understand all the in's and out's of phone companies however I find it curious that Bell would allow this but who knows. The tech was out today and my line passed the line test and I should be running early next week. They have agreed to a free trial period. I'll report back when I have a chance to test it out.
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