Question, moving where there is no broadband :(

[LePaul]

This coming weekend, I'm moving.  I tried to find something in town but with a dog & cats, that quickly limits the options.

10 miles out of town, I found a nice place that not only allows pets, but has a garage to boot.  Nice place for the car, bike and maybe a partially completed BD-5  

We're just getting over the sad part, had been living with my girlfriend of the past 3 years and it wasn't working out anymore.  So, in a way, its kinda sad to leave someplace that's been home for 4 years, good times and bad.  But, life goes on, and a new girlfriend is waiting in the wings  

So the only thing that really sucks about this new place is its pretty rural and cable and dsl internet services are not available here.  How's Aces High play out via dialup?  I hate to ask, since I havent had to use dialup for ages, other than the occassional login with the laptop while on the road.

Should I go with a national carrier (Skuzzy!! Help!) or stick with a local provider?  

What kind of bandwidth drain does Aces High voice to do the game?

I'm already stocking up on my MP3s now  

[AKcurly]

LePaul,

I believe I have read that Maine is a "hotbed" of radio link activity.  Have you looked for an ISP that provides "radio link Internet?"

curly

[LePaul]

Yea, HAM radio and such are popular up this way.  But its not my thing and I honestly dont know much about it

I was tempted to get the internet service via my Dish Network system but satellite internet isnt good for online games (latency, etc).

I mean, if I did that, with all my warping, I'd just *have* to fly La7s all the time  

[popeye]

I do okay at 26.4k, 200ms pings, no losses.  Of course, I've never seen the game with a better connect, so I might be missing a lot.

[Ripsnort]

200 ms 0 packets lost, though some days are better than others...my neighbors are Elk, Deer, cougar, coyote, bald eagles.

[MrLars]

26.4 here also and 160-170ms and no problems. I had DSL 2 years ago for a month, saw little difference in the game > but I was able to host H2H then.

[majic]

I have a dialup and rarely have problems with lag.  Surprisingly, it's MSN.

[bloom25]

I have two computers with AH on them.  One has a dial up connect, the other is a 100 Mb/s connection.  There is very little difference between the two.  (Lately the dial up computer has been smoother, but that's because the connection of my networked computer varies with activity on the network.)

[Wilbus]

Third person I say this too in two days

Dial up quite often works BETTER then ADSL or greater, I flew with it for several years and my connection has never been that smooth.

Go to setup in the modem (when making a new connection). Turn down to 19.2 baud rate, under advanced, remove "compression" and "error control" then go online using that connection.

[Skuzzy]

LePaul, if there is a good local ISP, I would go with them over the national carriers in a heartbeat.  Generally speaking a local guy will give you better support, but not always.
Here are some test questions to ask:

1)  Do you run your own DNS?  If they do not, then do not use them.

2)  Do you run run your own dialup equipment?  A lot of ISP's are using a third party for dial-up.  This bites when you need help.

3)  Do you provide you own support or farm it out?  If they famr it out, I would not use them.

4)  Do you have you own Usenet service, or use a third party for it?  If you use a third party, who do you use?  I would not use a local ISP that has thier own Usenet service.  Usenet servers require about 1TB of storage for any retention to be worthwhile and 99.9% of the local guys cannot afford to have that much capital sunk into it, and Usenet feeds almost have to be a dedicated DS3.  There are better ways to use a pipe than for a non-money making operation.  Ther are a few good third party Usenet services out there.  Supernews used to be pretty good.

5)  What kind of terminal server equipement do you use?  This is just to give you an idea of what type of connects you can expect.  If the equipment is Rockwell/Conexant based and you have a USR Robotics modem, you may not get the best connects around and vice-versa.

6)  Do you have more than one backbone connection to the Internet and who are they?  If they do not want to talk about this, then I would not use them.  

6a) Do you own your IP space or do you get it from your backbone provider?  Mixed bag here.  Owning the space and having multiple connections to the Internet means they can run BGP4 at the gateway.  Not owning thier own space allows them to route the data to make the best use of thier pipes.

If you are in doubt about the answers, you can prequalify some of them.  Go to Network Solutions web site and look for the ISP's domain and see what the name of the DNS servers are. If they do not match the ISP domain name, then the probably to do not run thier own name service.  
You can also get the IP addresses of the name servers and go to ARIN's web site and find out who owns that IP block.

Hope that helps.

[Saintaw]

'bald' eagles huh...

[LePaul]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
LePaul, if there is a good local ISP, I would go with them over the national carriers in a heartbeat.  Generally speaking a local guy will give you better support, but not always.
Here are some test questions to ask:

As you know I do webhosting.  I'm really tempted to order a ISDN line there so I can dial into it and acheive a 56k connect.  I run my own DNS so that wouldn't be an issue.  But, thing is, after I've ordered a phone line for the server location, the equipment, then bought a phone line at the apartment, I've spent well more than the $20~ish I could've spent at a local ISP

I had Earthlink some time ago, and used to get great connects with them.  Then it went to hell and tech support was a 3 hour hold.  

I'm probably going to go with the local ISP, there's a new one advertising that's worth a try.

I'm really tempted to go satellite but I'm told its good at everything except online games    Is this true?  It would seem to be the hops shouldnt be that bad?  Has anyone tried?  Whats the ditty?

I'd rather not own a phone line at the aprtment...I've got all I need in the cell plan I have.  Heck, the only reason I have the phone line I have now is for the DSL to run on top of it.  I'd go to Cable if the service wasnt so bad.  Word is, its improved greatly...just not available in my area yet.  That's option 2 for the near future.

[Camel]

What Wilbus said... exactly

[beet1e]

LePaul

I have no broadband and never have had. The best I can get here is 64K ISDN. My answer to you is in two parts.

• WB: As a modem mug, my connect sucked. Could sometimes shoot 70% of my P47 ammo into a zeke, then see it warp up the screen, barely smoking. But at the 2000 Con, I was amazed at how little ammo was needed for a kill – 2% of F6F to kill a 109. –That’s the difference a good connection made in that game. I hated the way some guys claimed to be hotshots/aces, when all the time their connect gave them a HUGE advantage. iEN was never able to resolve the difficulties for the modem mugs, and that was one of many reasons that I quit.
• Aces High: I noticed immediately that the subject of connections in AH was much less of an issue. Hitz Meanz Killz! You should be OK. HTC has had problems recently with the swelling membership, such that the arenas have been more populated than before, but they’re on the case and as far as I can see, a new pipe has been installed – Ping time down to 200ms from 400+ms. I have every confidence in HTC technical support that they will do all they can their end to make the game playable for all. Even with a modem before I got ISDN, things were good with AH.

Hard to believe I put up with iEN for all that time. One thing you might need to consider, if you do a lot of downloading, is to get a Download Agent. That way, you can schedule downloads and even if the process is interrupted, the Agent will redial your ISP and resume, and will even switch off your computer when it’s finished! I use Getright – http://www.getright.com

[straffo]

56K works fine here (and the packet have to cross the Atlantic )