Thursday, November 18, 2010

Got the Phone & DSL

I called BBT yesterday to find out why I was having to wait until Jan 6th to get it installed. The woman told me that it was ready to be hooked up and they had sent me the package to hook it up myself. :( I went to the mail box after that and sure enough there was a care package from BBT. When I got back I had to search through the dungeon to find some extra hardware I'd brought down here from Plano to hook it up and they failed to include the install CD in the package. I had to go to their site through the legion connection to download a program to install it. It works, but is little to NO better than the legion connection most of the time so  far so I guess I'll be spending a lot of time on my phone trying to get tech help to get the DSL working like its supposed to work. Oh well... I guess I am making some progress.

Two of my neighbors who can't get it are wanting to scab off of me, but no WiFi router is provided and the damn modem only has one connection. That would mean buying a high strength WiFi router and the added wattage to run it 24 hours a day so I'm going to have to do some thinking on that. It would also mean I would have to use the WiFi router to connect myself and I don't want to have to do that.

I ran the batteries down again last night because of one of my neighbors being here with his computer hooked up, I used the desktop computer some to try and get the DSL working and then I watched movies until the inverter dropped out about 11:45 last night. I said to heck with t and went to bed. Didn't run the charger until about 8:30 this morning and by that time the solar panels had started charging again.

13 comments:

  1. Cool - Jan 6th was a long way away. Congrats though, on your dsl line - hopefully all the little glitches will be sorted soon. You gotta feel relieved, though, at the progress?

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  2. Glad you finally got the DSL line. I am sure that it is much better than dial-up. With fiber optic cable, it should not slow down much over ditance. Good luck gitting it speeded up.

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  3. Dani & DD, right now its really blazing. Don't know if BBT just has big slow downs in prime time or they are getting this connection setup like its supposed to be.

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  4. That is good news, David. Hope it stays fast. Mine slows down at times but it usually coinsides with the times my email account will not work, so I figure it is a server problem at the provider's location.

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  5. Congrats, David! Have you run a speed test at http://www.speedtest.net/ yet? I'm looking for a reasonably priced all in one wireless-n router/dsl modem, but haven't found one yet that reviewers like - seems to be an overheating issue with a bunch of them. I have a spare b/g router I'd give ya.

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  6. So glad to hear of your progress. DSL is faster when there are not many people in your area on line at the same time as you. Peak times will always be slower.

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  7. My linksys wifi router has 4 hard outlets plus wifi.It plugs into the modem. If your modem is now connected directly to you computer just pluging into the modem probably won't work until support tells you how to reprogram the modem. Not one tells you any of this so I learned the hard way.
    I wouldn't operate any computer now without one because of the built-in firewall especially if I ran windows. As it is I run linux naked and other than the usual hassles with technology no problem.

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  8. I asked BBT about widely varying speeds during the day (I experience the same thing), and they candidly replied that they were aware of a problem caused by the fact that the link or networking equipment from TR to Alpine is inadequate to handle the traffic generated by the phenomenal growth at TR in DSL connections. They indicated a two-month timeframe to try to fix, although they said that could get longer, depending on how things go. Also, bear in mind that the DSL speeds there are not going to be anything like you see around urban areas. At TR, 1.0 Mb/sec is pretty good, and at certain times of day you will see it go down to .4-.6 mB/sec. In Dallas/Hosuton/Austin 5 mB/sec is average.

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  9. DD, tonight so far so good. blogger.com seems to be another problem lately Any of you other blog owners having problems to?

    Abby,my main worry with a WiFi router will be with the wattage pulled. If too high then I won't use one even though my neighbor down the hill just spent a fortune on the stuff to setup his end today. I hate it when people do stuff like that!

    I had two different WiFi routers that got chunked before I left Plano because I didn't figure I'd ever need one down here. Unfortunately there was a lot of stuff like that that I found out later I could really use.

    Allen, being how its the season for lots of people coming in for the winter plus all the people moving down here I can see where that could be a problem. I remember last winter at BBMI there were times when you just couldn't stay connected or it was so slow you'd get frustrated and say to heck with it.

    Oldfool, I run a dual boot now Windows/Linux, but for everything other than MagicJack I use Linux. I don't have any doubt that any decent WiFi router should be able to pickup the ball and run with it, but I sure want to check for the wattage draw before getting one. That and distance it would be good for.

    RV Rover, I'd about decided that must be the case. Now if they WILL just rectify the problem before too long?

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  10. David, the DD-WRT-enabled Linksys router that I was using to send the connection your way is rated at 1 amp at 12 volts. That means it uses 12 watts, though, due to inefficiency in the power step-down from 120 to 12 volts, i would say it is probably using about 15 watts. Not a whole lot of power.

    These things can use up to 18 volts DC, so you could actually eliminate the inefficient wall-wart, and run it directly from your solar setup. Linksys WRT-54g, or, even better, WRT-54GL, which is designed specifically for the operating system to be replaced by linux.

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  11. Tffnguy

    Maybe you can start your own telecom (Terlingua or Bust Telecom) and charge your nieghbors. John Wells over at the Field Lab was looking for ways to make more money. How about you guys get together and start (Benita Bell Telecom) The worlds first off the grid telecom.

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  12. Dave, I think you may gain a couple of other customers to replace me as far as Internet goes. After figuring the wattage being pulled by the modem and WiFi router 24 hours a day I'm going to have to call that a No No or make it a day time only deal. The overhead is too much for my system without cutting back on what I do around here and I don't plan to do that. I like watching movies , playing around on the Internet, running the stereo and having real light too much.

    captaincrunch, I think I'd have to do a lot of battery and solar panel upgrade or pay to get the grid over here to do that. Maybe JW wants to try it? As is that would be like leaving my laptop on 24 hours a day and then it would double every time I turned the laptop on.

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  13. Congratulations David...I am envious !!

    Here in Del Rio I guess it will be a couple of years before we get DSL :-(

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