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Posted by: Scott Carlberg Oct 26 2004, 03:13 PM

I rarely use my home phone anymore and would like to cancel it all-together, using just my cell phone for communication.
However, I've been thinking about getting DSL at the house, and was wondering IF anyone knows if it's possible to have DSL withOut having a home phone account?

Posted by: dlo914 Oct 26 2004, 03:17 PM

could just go with cable internet; that doesnt require an existing phone line, but then again DSL performs a lot better.

Posted by: Aaron Cox Oct 26 2004, 03:19 PM

roadrunner cable

Posted by: Scott Carlberg Oct 26 2004, 03:21 PM

Umm, let's see...

I'm a DirectTV customer, so no cable into the house
AND
comcast is the local cable co......

and they SUCK!


I do keep hearing that DSL typically performs better; and more people seem to complain about cable than dsl.

Posted by: SirAndy Oct 26 2004, 03:22 PM

use your cell-phone ...

Andy

Posted by: GTeener Oct 26 2004, 03:23 PM

We're in the same situation. To my knowledge it is not possible to have DSL without a land-based phone line.

There are of course alternative high-speed Internet technologies out there, like cable and satellite.

Posted by: dlo914 Oct 26 2004, 03:26 PM

ive heard good comments on them.

Posted by: aircooledboy Oct 26 2004, 03:29 PM

I too have DirecTV, and we got the 2 way satelite high speed set up a few months back. I have been very happy with it.

Posted by: ninefourteener Oct 26 2004, 03:29 PM

Yea.. thats what I do..... It works well.

I have a rediculously high-minute cell phone plan, that actually alllows me to have a secondary cell phone at no extra charge, and just share minutes. Not to promote them, but I use sprint:

2000 daytime minutes
Unlimited nights + weekends
Unlimited internet (on phone)
Unlimited picture taking/sending
Secondary phone, unlimited sharing of all features

$120.00 per month (including taxes)

My cable Internet in my home is SUPER fast, and I pay $35 a month for it.

$155 a month for 2 phones that I can use anywhere in the country, more than I will ever need, and super fast internet acces in my home.

Not too bad I don't think

Posted by: GTeener Oct 26 2004, 03:33 PM

Wait until it really gets stormy....

I lived in a place with Direct TV and when it got really windy or stormy or reception sucked

Posted by: GTeener Oct 26 2004, 03:35 PM

I think that's what he's saying. He uses his cell phone more than his house phone.

OR are you saying just use a cell phone for everything, including Web access?



I'd think that could be expensive and limiting visually.

Posted by: Scott Carlberg Oct 26 2004, 03:40 PM

Yeah I didn't quite get SirAndy's reply either.

I do use my cell phone, I use it for calls even when I'm at home.

I just wonder if it's possible to Use the land-line phone, but Not have an account, not stealing mind you, just be UNable to make or receive calls with it.

Posted by: GTeener Oct 26 2004, 03:42 PM

Well since you have a landline number assignment, I doubt they'd let you keep it for free, but you could reduce your service to the bare minimum. That's what we are going to do. No long-distance, no caller id, no call waiting, no voicemail etc... You can't escape the taxes though.

Posted by: lapuwali Oct 26 2004, 03:49 PM

It may vary depending on location and which Baby Bell serves your area. However, it IS possible to have DSL w/o paying for voice phone service. You can order the DSL through Covad, who *may* sub-contract with your local Baby Bell for the physical line, which may not have any voice service on it.

I have IDSL (DSL over ISDN, longer distance to the CO than DSL, but much slower and a lot more expensive), and while I have a voice line, it doesn't have a dial tone on it half the time, and I'm regularly tussling with the phone company over it. The ISDN line, however, is mostly flawless. I also use my cell as my "only" phone, and only have a voice land-line because my wife is paranoid about not having one (despite that fact that we both have cell phones from different providers). We live at the very edge of the DSL distance limit, and simply couldn't get DSL to work. Tried the local cable system, and they sucked big rocks (hours of downtime every month, and I use my Net connection for work).

As for DirecTV and storms, I get a great signal even when it's pouring with rain. It's lower when it's raining, but it's still good enough to transmit the signal (digital is all or nothing, you get it or you don't). If you're having a signal problem at any time, check the mounting of the dish (should not move much when windy), and make sure it's aimed well. Some of the receivers have a signal strength meter page. On the Hughes and Sony model receivers, it's a percentage, and if you can get 80% in good weather (no wind), and the dish is well mounted, you should get at least 50% in terrible weather, which is enough. Below 45%, and you get some signal breakup.

I've had DirecTV for nearly 10 years now (got it to pick up what was then Speedvision, as my cable company didn't carry it), and I'm still using the same dish and LNB I started with then. I've mounted it myself three times as I moved. I now live in a place where I have to peek "over" my house and there are VERY strong winds regularly (San Mateo, near the bay), yet I can still get good signal after I took the effort to aim it properly. We're starting our fourth winter in this house with no problems. Neighbors with cable have had the service go out 2-3 times per year, often in storms (above ground cable).

Posted by: SirAndy Oct 26 2004, 04:01 PM

use your Cell-Phone ...

for Internet-Access ...

no Landline needed ...



can you hear me now?
Andy

Posted by: scruz914 Oct 26 2004, 05:17 PM

I use my cell phone as a modem at my cabin in Tahoe where I have no land line. Works, but it is slow. Something like 28.8. I also use a planar antenna to insure a strong signal.

-Jeff

Posted by: datapace Oct 26 2004, 06:21 PM

You may qualify for Verizon FTTP (Fiber To the Premises)! $39.95 for 5MB/2MB, $49.95 for 15MB/2MB, and $199.95 for 30MB/5MB

I would wet my pants for that sort of bandwidth

You can check http://www.verizon.net/fios/.

Wouldn't recommend the cellular wireless to the net, I've used it for business and it's painfully slow. Fine if there are no other options, but it's like back in dialup days.

-bryan

Posted by: Red-Beard Oct 26 2004, 06:58 PM

In San Diego, I had, for a short while, Road Runner and DSL from SBC running at the same time. The Cable was 4 times the speed in download and 8 times the speed in upload. It took me over a month to get DSL hooked up, I had to pay for equipment, and was required to sign a contract for a year. After 3 days, I could see that the DSL wasn't going to cut it. I called SBC and was charged $180 to close the account.

I never had problems with Road Runner or cable being down (except when I didn't pay my bill )

In 2001, Time Warner/Roar Runner was twice the Speed of COX. But that is now not true. And COX had a killer deal:

Basic Digital Cable
Cable Phone
High Speed Cable access
$89/month

Posted by: Scott Carlberg Oct 26 2004, 07:06 PM

can I get some more/contact info on this
Road Runner company?

Links etc?

Posted by: morphenspectra Oct 26 2004, 07:07 PM

I agree, go sattelite, although when it rains too hard we loose sattelite reception and this happens here 3 or 4 times a year for an hour or so.

Posted by: Pnambic Oct 26 2004, 07:24 PM

HAHAHA!!!

Some cell companies offer wireless Internet connections too. I know Sprint does. I think you get download speeds comparable to ISDN or around 128Kb.

My DSL gets me around 1200Kb/s download speeds.

DSL is awesome, but only if you're close enough to the company or one of their fibre optic stations to get good speeds. Cable has a longer range, but can be a shared bandwidth meaning your speed depends on how many other people in your neighborhood are using it at the same time. Around here, some of the Cable providers are advertising speeds in the 2Megabit range. (Thats 2000Kb/s as compared to a 56Kb/s dialup modem for you not quite geeks out there.)

In my experience, my DSL has had a total of 2 days downtime over 3 years as compared to about 2 weeks of downtime for my father's Roadrunner Cable connection over the same period of time. SBC-Yahoo! DSL's tech support was a billion times more helpful by the way.

Posted by: Pnambic Oct 26 2004, 07:31 PM

Regarding satellite, while it is a digital signal, the information you are sending and receiving has been broken down into little bitty packets for more efficient transfer over the Internet. The more interference between your dish and the satellite up in space, the more packets you drop and have to get resent. (slows the rate at which the page will load) Any situations where there are large quantities of moisture (rain, snow) or trees being blown to the point that they block the signal, or smoke from CA forest fires, or big stupid bird sitting on the dang receiver, etc, will affect the signal strength and therefore your download speed.

Still better than dialup though!

Posted by: aircooledboy Oct 26 2004, 07:43 PM

I have lost internet signal 3x since May for a total of probably 2 hours. Each was during a hella -thunderstorm, and I had no business having my computer on anyway.

Posted by: Pnambic Oct 26 2004, 07:52 PM

....forgot to finish my post....duh!

...so as long as you position your dish so that there are no trees or other fixed objects that may stand or get blown in the way, and you're not near a forest fire, etc, your satellite connection should be fine. Only in extreme storms (supercells generally or during a major deluge) will you completely lose signal. In Indiana, we get those storms on a relatively regular basis, but that's not the case in most of the country. My dad has DSS for TV at his house and loses his signal for 10 to 30 minutes or sowhenever a really really big storm blows through, about 10-12 times a year. I don't have DSS for TV at my house as that money would be better spent on my teener...

Posted by: anthony Oct 26 2004, 07:58 PM

If you live in such a super rainy area you can also upgrade to a larger sized dish. That will allow you to maintain a stronger signal even with interference. I've seen up 30" dishes for DirecTV.

Posted by: campbellcj Oct 26 2004, 08:49 PM

Where I live...which really ISN'T the boonies but not the concrete jungle either, we can't get cable internet, or DSL, or cell phone reception (it's a canyon). So our only options were running a dedicated pipe (Frame Relay or T1) $$$$$ or since we don't work at home all that much, DirecPC/DirecWay which is the Hughes DirecTV internet service.

It actually has been quite reliable and throughput is comparable with DSL -- I typically see 800-1500Kbps down and slower uplink but still several X dialup -- however, the equipment and cost are more substantial. The biggest issue is the latency. Think of talking via radio to an astronaut in orbit w/ that little time lag, and that's exactly what you're doing with satellite internet. So the "ping times" suck for online gaming or interactive VPN stuff, but for basic email, web and file transfer it is pretty solid.

If you rely on VPN (PPTP or LTP) then a dedicated pipe or DSL is probably your best bet. Dial-up is way too slow, cable is highly variable and satellite has that nasty latency.

Weather has affected the internet a few times but nothing major; right now it is pouring rain and no probs. TV has never gone down or been seriously degraded IIRC.

Bottom line is that satellite beats dial-up 10X over, but if you have other options they are likely to be cheaper and perform at least as well if not better.

Posted by: skline Oct 26 2004, 11:05 PM

I live in Costa Mesa, DSL is available here but the fastest speed they can offer me is 144k bi-directional. The cable here is from comcast and it is 5mb down and 384k up. It works ok but I am looking into the setup Datapace mentioned, that would be awesome especially for what I do.

Posted by: vortrex Oct 27 2004, 12:46 AM

you will get a lot of latency with satellite, keep that in mind.