Broadband Internet Options?

[Technobuilder]

I've been looking into getting broadband internet in the Nashville, Tennessee area when I move back there from College in a couple of months and was wondering if anyone here might be of some assistance.

First of all, I've used unlimited cable internet in the past from a smaller company Charter Cable, but I keep hearing that the cable company popular in the area I'm moving to Comcast, has been tweaking the service of high end users, so I'm looking for options.

I admit that I suck down a lot of bandwidth, so an unlimited option would be ideal and something around 50 bucks a month is what I've averaged.

But things change, and I'm just trying to get a feel for what else might be out there available other than Cable.

So, would anyone mind explaining the differing types of broadband internet options such as DSL, Cable, Satellite, and Whatever else might be available.

I'd appreciate the information.

Also, are there any websites out there someone could point me too which rate the internet services available in a particular area?

Thanks.

 

[Gaseous Anomaly]

Have you looked into Clear Wire wireless broadband? I have a couple friends that are with them here and they like it better than cable or DSL.

 

[farmkid]

Technobuilder said:
Also, are there any websites out there someone could point me too which rate the internet services available in a particular area?

Thanks.

Try BroadbandReports.com

 

[Technobuilder]

Thank you both.

I'll check into your suggestions.

Please continue.

 

[Malleus]

^^^ You may not have any reliable options in three years' time, though.

 

[Technobuilder]

Yeah, that's not great.

 

[Mallory]

If that happens we'll probably see more of what Comcast is supposedly doing, deliberating slowing down big bandwidth users.

And on-topic...I've been using Comcast now for three years and have been very happy with both the performance and the service. But then I'm not a big user of bandwidth and the only other comparison I can make is to Verizon DSL which gave me fits.

 

[Psion]

Hammer said:
^^^ You may not have any reliable options in three years' time, though.

Sounds like the Internet's got its own version of Thomas Malthus.

 

[Amaris]

We'll be fine. Trust me.

I'm not kidding, by the time this would become a major issue, you'll have nothing to worry about. The problem will be resolved, and actually already has been resolved.

J.

 

[Malleus]

J. Allen said:
We'll be fine. Trust me.

I'm not kidding, by the time this would become a major issue, you'll have nothing to worry about. The problem will be resolved, and actually already has been resolved.

J.

You're joking, right?

[Sorry for the bump, but my attention was elsewhere in other fora until yesterday. ]

 

[Amaris]

Malleus said:

J. Allen said:
We'll be fine. Trust me.

I'm not kidding, by the time this would become a major issue, you'll have nothing to worry about. The problem will be resolved, and actually already has been resolved.

J.

You're joking, right?

[Sorry for the bump, but my attention was elsewhere in other fora until yesterday. ]

No joke. The issue is being corrected even now. I look at this the same way I looked at Y2K.


J.

 

[Malleus]

^^^ The constraint here, however, is the speed of light - just like continuous micro-trends in computer chips and the inevitable limit

 

[Arrqh]

Malleus said:
^^^ The constraint here, however, is the speed of light - just like continuous micro-trends in computer chips and the inevitable limit

The predicted brownouts actually aren't about speed at all... they're about capacity and infrastructure. It says it right in the first article... more money is going in to building up the extremities of the system to wire up more houses then is going into building up the primary infrastructure to handle the increased traffic; if the trend continues then there'll be a tipping point.

As for the lower limit on transistor sizes, there's plenty of research into new methods of increasing chip complexity many of which abandon transistors altogether. But the problem is nothing really new...

 

[Amaris]

Malleus said:
^^^ The constraint here, however, is the speed of light - just like continuous micro-trends in computer chips and the inevitable limit

There's been an inevitable limit since microprocessors first appeared on the market. 20 years ago, if I would have told a computer manufacturer that I would be using a Quad Core 65nm processor, TeraByte hard drives, Gigs of RAM, Dual GB SLI video cards, hell they wouldn't even know what a DVD burner is, all of that sitting inside of a 16" high, 6" wide tower, using a 21" LCD flat panel, surfing the Internet (wuh?) at 10,000 Mbps as a standard connection, they'd freak. I mean, 640k is enough for everybody, right?

Don't worry.


J.

 

[Arrqh]

J. Allen said:
There's been an inevitable limit since microprocessors first appeared on the market.

This is a different sort of limit though. As transistors shrink, quantum effects become more and more apparent. The types of transistors that we currently use do have an inherent minimum size which we'll probably hit in the next 10 years or so.

This isn't the end to faster CPU's of course, it merely means we'll have to use a different method to make our computers... the best analogy is when we switched from tubes to transistors. This time we'll be switching from transistors to something else. There's a few different potential something elses that people are researching, they're all pretty fascinating. As well as ways to increase CPU speeds without needing smaller transistors, such as stacked chip designs.

When we hit the limit, we will overcome it... but there's going to be some major changes and innovations to make that happen. Business as usual, as far as I'm concerned

 

[Amaris]

ChanukahZombie said:

J. Allen said:
There's been an inevitable limit since microprocessors first appeared on the market.

This is a different sort of limit though. As transistors shrink, quantum effects become more and more apparent. The types of transistors that we currently use do have an inherent minimum size which we'll probably hit in the next 10 years or so.

This isn't the end to faster CPU's of course, it merely means we'll have to use a different method to make our computers... the best analogy is when we switched from tubes to transistors. This time we'll be switching from transistors to something else. There's a few different potential something elses that people are researching, they're all pretty fascinating. As well as ways to increase CPU speeds without needing smaller transistors, such as stacked chip designs.

When we hit the limit, we will overcome it... but there's going to be some major changes and innovations to make that happen. Business as usual, as far as I'm concerned

Agreed. That's what I'm trying to say here, as well. It will be business as usual. I believe Human innovation will take us to the stars and beyond. We're not out of ideas yet.

J.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Whatever happened to the vast amounts of dark fiber that were laid during the Internet bubble, then sat dormant as the Internet didn't explode quite the way everyone expected? I know Google was buying up a bunch of it, but surely there is still quite a bit left untapped.

I'm with J. Allen on this, though. This is a situation very much like Y2K, it's just flying under the radar at the moment. I suspect this problem is helping drive corporate opposition to net neutrality, though. Nobody wants to lay out big sums of money unless they can use their infrastructure to create walled gardens.

Regardless, nobody wants to be caught with their pants down on this one, and I expect we'll just hear every few years that we're "nearing capacity," while it's still always growing.

 

[John Picard]

Robert Maxwell said:
Whatever happened to the vast amounts of dark fiber that were laid during the Internet bubble, then sat dormant as the Internet didn't explode quite the way everyone expected? I know Google was buying up a bunch of it, but surely there is still quite a bit left untapped.

I'm with J. Allen on this, though. This is a situation very much like Y2K, it's just flying under the radar at the moment. I suspect this problem is helping drive corporate opposition to net neutrality, though. Nobody wants to lay out big sums of money unless they can use their infrastructure to create walled gardens.

Regardless, nobody wants to be caught with their pants down on this one, and I expect we'll just hear every few years that we're "nearing capacity," while it's still always growing.

Y2K was media hype and nothing more.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Jolly_St_Picard said:

Robert Maxwell said:
Whatever happened to the vast amounts of dark fiber that were laid during the Internet bubble, then sat dormant as the Internet didn't explode quite the way everyone expected? I know Google was buying up a bunch of it, but surely there is still quite a bit left untapped.

I'm with J. Allen on this, though. This is a situation very much like Y2K, it's just flying under the radar at the moment. I suspect this problem is helping drive corporate opposition to net neutrality, though. Nobody wants to lay out big sums of money unless they can use their infrastructure to create walled gardens.

Regardless, nobody wants to be caught with their pants down on this one, and I expect we'll just hear every few years that we're "nearing capacity," while it's still always growing.

Y2K was media hype and nothing more.

If you're saying there never was a "Y2K problem," then you're mistaken. There most certainly was--many software companies spent a lot of man-hours patching their software to deal with it, too.

The media did exaggerate its potential effects, though, and I think that's what is happening here. A lack of capacity isn't going to shut down the Internet or anything like that. At worst, people will experience slowdowns if they happen to be routing through a saturated network segment. Implementing QoS and smarter routing algorithms would solve a lot of that problem, anyway.

 

[John Picard]

Robert Maxwell said:

Jolly_St_Picard said:

Robert Maxwell said:
Whatever happened to the vast amounts of dark fiber that were laid during the Internet bubble, then sat dormant as the Internet didn't explode quite the way everyone expected? I know Google was buying up a bunch of it, but surely there is still quite a bit left untapped.

I'm with J. Allen on this, though. This is a situation very much like Y2K, it's just flying under the radar at the moment. I suspect this problem is helping drive corporate opposition to net neutrality, though. Nobody wants to lay out big sums of money unless they can use their infrastructure to create walled gardens.

Regardless, nobody wants to be caught with their pants down on this one, and I expect we'll just hear every few years that we're "nearing capacity," while it's still always growing.

Y2K was media hype and nothing more.

If you're saying there never was a "Y2K problem," then you're mistaken. There most certainly was--many software companies spent a lot of man-hours patching their software to deal with it, too.

The media did exaggerate its potential effects, though, and I think that's what is happening here. A lack of capacity isn't going to shut down the Internet or anything like that. At worst, people will experience slowdowns if they happen to be routing through a saturated network segment. Implementing QoS and smarter routing algorithms would solve a lot of that problem, anyway.

95% of Y2K was nothing more than media hype. I'm a programmer and know from experience.

Thank you for playing.