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I've decided not to move back to NJ from Durham (whew, what was I thinking) and instead want to move to the mountains. I'm thinking Black Mountain, will check it out in a couple of weeks. I work from home though and have to have high speed internet. What company do most people use and can you give me some idea of costs? Thanks! I'd be moving next spring, trying to buy a small house, but I like to plan.
For the most part, Bell-South and Charter Cable are your only choices, unless you go with hughes-net which is a total joke. Pricing varies depending on what speed connection you purchase and if the plan is part of a package.
A word to the wise, unless you have a very very high end computer, do not waste money on any internet connection speed above 3 Mbps, chances are your computer will be the limiting factor, not your connection speed. happy camping :-)
Skyrunner may have service there too. Just do a search for Skyrunner. They use a bunch of transmitter towers to communicate via radio waves to an antenna installed on your roof. Supposedly have good service and speeds. There is DSL service in some areas from Verizon and AT&T but it seems like Charter is prevalent since you can bundle high speed internet, cable and phone. They offer 1, 5, 10, and 20 Mbps speed packages however if you use a wireless router in your home you probably won't see much more than 3 Mbps no matter how fast a service you buy.
They offer 1, 5, 10, and 20 Mbps speed packages however if you use a wireless router in your home you probably won't see much more than 3 Mbps no matter how fast a service you buy.
Technically I don't know. However based on my own experience I rarely get more than that and that is what others have told me--The Mule has said he only gets about 3 with his high speed DSL line when he is running wireless. I think it is just a limitation of the current wireless technology. I have Comcast right now with their 15 Mbps service and the only time I can get a download speed faster than about 3 is if I am connecting to a high speed server at night located just down the road from me in DC. If I connect to a server in Denver or SF then it drops fast. For that reason I have decided not to get more than the 5 Mbps service from Charter when we get moved to Asheville next month. That said, 3 is still pretty fast and you never get upload speeds more than about 1 Mbps with most of the faster services. I still keep a couple hardwire connections going to rooms where I want a faster connection. You can always run a large upload in the background or overnight. Of course your results may vary
Technically I don't know. However based on my own experience I rarely get more than that and that is what others have told me--The Mule has said he only gets about 3 with his high speed DSL line when he is running wireless. I think it is just a limitation of the current wireless technology. I have Comcast right now with their 15 Mbps service and the only time I can get a download speed faster than about 3 is if I am connecting to a high speed server at night located just down the road from me in DC. If I connect to a server in Denver or SF then it drops fast. For that reason I have decided not to get more than the 5 Mbps service from Charter when we get moved to Asheville next month. That said, 3 is still pretty fast and you never get upload speeds more than about 1 Mbps with most of the faster services. I still keep a couple hardwire connections going to rooms where I want a faster connection. You can always run a large upload in the background or overnight. Of course your results may vary
According to speedtest.net, I'm getting about 18 MB from my directly connected computer, and only about 5 MB from the secondary computer via the wireless router. The Charter tech says there's no reason why I shouldn't be getting comparable connection speed via wireless, but who knows.
To the OP, I would avoid Charter like the plague, if at all possible. I'm a former Time Warner cable customer, and the Charter service -- whether telephone, internet, or cable -- has been 3rd world from the get go. I would dump them altogether, but they are the only providers that supply a speed greater than 6 MB, AFAIK.
According to speedtest.net, I'm getting about 18 MB from my directly connected computer, and only about 5 MB from the secondary computer via the wireless router. The Charter tech says there's no reason why I shouldn't be getting comparable connection speed via wireless, but who knows.
To the OP, I would avoid Charter like the plague, if at all possible. I'm a former Time Warner cable customer, and the Charter service -- whether telephone, internet, or cable -- has been 3rd world from the get go. I would dump them altogether, but they are the only providers that supply a speed greater than 6 MB, AFAIK.
Just found this--seems to answer our questions:
Question: How fast is wireless computer networking?
Answer: The speed of a wireless network depends on several factors.
First, wireless local area networks (WLANs) feature differing levels of performance depending on which Wi-Fi standard they support. 802.11b WLANs offer maximum theoretical bandwidth of 11 Mbps. 802.11a and 802.11g WLANs offer theoretical bandwidth up to 54 Mbps. (In contrast, typical wired Ethernets run at 100 Mbps.)
The performance of Wi-Fi networks in practice never approaches the theoretical maximum. 802.11b networks, for example, generally operate no faster than about 50% of theoretical peak, or 5.5 Mbps. Likewise, 802.11a and 802.11g networks generally run no faster than 20 Mbps. The disparity between theoretical and practical performance comes from protocol overhead, signal interference, and decreasing signal distance with distance. In addition, the more devices communicating on a WLAN simultaneously, the slower the network will appear.
On home networks, keep in mind that the performance of an Internet connection is often the limiting factor in network speed. Even though files can be shared on a wireless LAN at speeds of 5 or 20 Mbps, wireless clients will still connect to the Internet at the speed typically offered by Internet Service Providers, usually less than 1 Mbps.
Finally, wireless network technology is capable of more speed than what Wi-Fi supports today. Industry vendors continue to develop improved technologies like 802.16 WiMAX that offer wireless communications with faster speeds and longer range.
So I would bet that the wireless board that comes installed in Dell computers isn't the fastest kid on the block (probably the 802.11b protocol). My wireless router supports 802.11n, g and b protocols so I may be able to squeeze out more speed if I upgraded my card to 802.11g and could get really fast with an 802.11n card. I think I'll just bend over and plug the darned thing into the cable modem instead--larry
I just dug up my cable and hooked in then ran speedtest again. Wireless I'm getting 3 Mbps and up to 5 with a local server. Hardwired it doubles, maxing out at 11.6 to a very local server but still coming in at 6.7 to SF so I guess the 50% value is pretty accurate.
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Dish TV?
