Wi-Fi Internet Question

[Rogue II]

I'm searching for a new means of getting the internet at home. Right now, I am using dial-up.:rolleyes: I have DirecTV, internet through them will run $100 down and $99/month for 15 months ($60/month after that). DSL is not available in my area (I'll save you a long, painful story about Sprint). Then there is Cox Cable, who want an extra $10/month because I'm not a cable subscriber, plus, I'd have to get a cable modem. I just found out about Wi-Fi. There is a T-Moblie station within a mile of my house. It would be about $40/month and the adapters seem fairly cheap. Is getting Wi-Fi my best choice?

[SirSteve]

Look into EV-DO.

[Rogue II]

Look into EV-DO.

Thanks, Steve. EV-DO appears to be more of a business format, but it is available in my area. I'll have to stop by Fry's Electronics and see what they say. What is the advantage of this over WI-FI?

[2-1B]

I went Wireless when I moved to my current place and I love it. Not as good as DSL or cable of course but still wayyyyyy better than my old dialup. ;)

And cheaper. :) At the old place I paid $30 just to have a phone line so I could pay another $15 for dialup so that was about $45 for internet vs. the just under $20 I pay for this wireless stuff.

[Mandalorian Candidat]

I got Comcase high speed internet (that's what they call it so I don't know if it's technically DSL) through Best Buy. The cable modem was $80 but was rebated so I got it all back - taxes. Hookup was $50 (or there abouts) and I got that rebated in the form of a BB gift card. The cost per month is $30 ($20 if you're a cable subscriber) for 6 months. You can cancel and sign up the wife or one of the kids as the subscriber and reup for $30. I split the cost with my tenant and he bought a wireless router so we use it in the whole house. The wireless cards were rebated from CompUSA so I really only paid about $5 for them.

I really like it cause it's faster than the T1 line at school (and that one is really fast). It says it goes at 100.0 Mb/s but I don't know how truthful that is.

[darthvyn]

MC, if it's a cable modem, then you have cable internet. DSL stands for Digital Subscriber Line - it's a dedicated phone line only used for internet, thus providing more bandwidth since it doesn't need to transfer phone calls on the same line.

as for your wireless router, your in-network transfer rate is probably 100mb/s but your transfer rate from the www is probably more like 10mb/s. not only that, but any wireless devices hooked up depend on what 802.11 spec the router supports. 802.11g goes to 54mb/s, while 802.11b only does 11mb/s.

[Mandalorian Candidat]

Thanks for clearing that up. The router is a g, but my laptop card is a b...that's why I got it for cheap.

So does the speed of internet cable depend on the users around you, in a different household, say? I was wondering if the cable people somehow doled out to each household a certain bandwidth and that was fairly constant no matter how many other people are using it or if everyone in the neighborhood is logged on the speed would decrease.