Forums > Specific Focus > Technical Mexico

johanson / Moderator

Jan 29, 2004, 9:34 PM

Post #1 of 12 (1098 views)

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Twice the speed for the same price.

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As some of you know I'm a volunteer at the local Ajijic ISP and answer questions for a few hours per day, quiet often while I am in Ajijic.

Lagunanet began offering standard telephone internet connections to its customers in the summer of 1997. In 2000 they began offering higher speed connections to those users willing to pay more via two-way radio technology. Their beginning price was $40 per month for a 64 Kb/sec connection and the charging $60 per month for a 128 Kb/sec. They doubled their speed a couple of years AND DOUBLED THEIR SPEED AGAIN YESTERDAY while KEEPING the amount charged the same. Shown below is a history of what has occurred

Year 2000-2001 64 Kb/sec for $40 and 128Kb/sec for $60

Year 2001-2004 128 Kb/sec for $40 and 256Kb/sec for $60

The latest rates, 256 Kb/sec for $40 and 512Kb/sec for $60

(This post was edited by johanson on Jan 29, 2004, 9:35 PM)

Brian

Jan 30, 2004, 7:02 AM

Post #2 of 12 (1078 views)

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Re: [johanson] Twice the speed for the same price.

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Prodigy Infinitum recently doubled the throughput from 256k to 512k for the same price. Sure hope the cable internet company here in SMA does the same to remain competitive. I really don't like Prodigy ..ymmv

johanson / Moderator

Jan 30, 2004, 8:04 AM

Post #3 of 12 (1069 views)

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Re: [Brian] Twice the speed for the same price.

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Brian: for at least two months now, if one were to go to www.pcpitstop.com and check ones download speed with a 256 Kb/sec prodigy infinitum connection here in Ajijic, he would download at about 400 kb/sec. We all thought that was really great.

Now they are saying that you can get a free upgrade to 512, but the folks are still downloading at about 400 kb/sec. I'm not sure what that means. What kind of download speeds are you getting?

Link to http://www.pcpitstop.com/internet/default.asp

(This post was edited by johanson on Jan 30, 2004, 8:23 AM)

Brian

Jan 30, 2004, 9:41 AM

Post #4 of 12 (1055 views)

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Re: [johanson] Twice the speed for the same price.

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That is strange...I would try some other measurement of throughput. Here are a couple I use frequently:

http://webservices.zdnet.com/...?tag=zdfd.dir3.speed

http://us.mcafee.com/...pper/catalog_nav.asp

johanson / Moderator

Jan 30, 2004, 12:20 PM

Post #5 of 12 (1040 views)

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Re: [Brian] Twice the speed for the same price.

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There are other very good sources for checking both your download and upload speed. For sake of conformity often we use www.pcpitstop.com here in Ajijic. It's in Dallas and our backbone enters the US via Houston. When we check download speeds with servers on the West Coast etc there are more hops and therefore the speed is often but no always slower.

Just for the heck of it, would you mind trying the pcpitstop test site? I would love to hear what type of speed you are getting with pcpitstop using prodigy infinitum

http://www.pcpitstop.com/internet/default.asp

It's 2PM and I am on a busy wireless network. Therefore my speed is somewhat slower than during slow times.

My wireless connection speed to the ISP averages 920 kb/sec

Shown below is the throughput speeds to various servers located throughout the US

Using ZD net I usually get slower readings, today as usual, I got around 440 Kb/sec

Using Mcafee I got an average of 680 Kb/sec, which is normal to a little faster than usual

Using pcpitstop I only averaged about 690 today. Normally its about 15% faster than Mcafee

What does this all mean? I'm not sure. But its fun to play around. Do I need the kind of speed I have? Good god no. A true 256 both up and down is all I need until I start downloading video programs.

mkdutch

Feb 11, 2004, 4:17 PM

Post #6 of 12 (959 views)

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Re: [johanson] Twice the speed for the same price.

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Hi Pete,
I am interested in switching from dial up to wireless. But, last year when I asked about it, I was told I would have to put my antenna on my roof. Since we live about 3/4 of the way up the mountain, and we are mainly there in the summer/rainy season, I was worried about plugging my laptop into the antenna/LIGHTNING ROD.

A few months ago, I saw an inquiry on this forum from someone who wanted to connect using a wireless access point, instead of plugging into the computer. No one responded to that inquiry on the forum, so I am asking again......

Could I connect the rooftop antenna to my Linksys Etherfast Wireless Point + Cable DSL Router, and access the internet wirelessly from my laptop with an 802.11B card in the laptop? That way I would not have to worry about lightning burning up my laptop, only my access point.

Thanks,
Kay

johanson / Moderator

Feb 11, 2004, 9:01 PM

Post #7 of 12 (947 views)

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Re: [mkdutch] Twice the speed for the same price.

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I don't have my antenna on my roof. I have a great line of site view of the antenna at the ISP from my front porch. The dish just needs to be pointed at and line of site with the antenna on top of the very high pole above the Lagunanet office.

I sometimes hook my antenna up to my ethernet bridge and then either connect via cat5e cable directly to my pc or laptop or to my Linksys router when I want to connect to more than one computer at a time. And yes I do it wirelessly (802.11b)

mkdutch

Feb 12, 2004, 12:31 AM

Post #8 of 12 (944 views)

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Re: [johanson] Twice the speed for the same price.

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I didn't want to put the antenna on the roof, but I sent an email to lagunanet tech support, and they said they were familiar with where my house was, and the only place to get line of sight was by putting the antenna on the roof. ....bummer!

So, my next questtion is, how do you connect an antenna to an ethernet bridge? I have an ethernet bridge, and it only accepts RJ45 ethernet connections.

DavidMcL

Feb 12, 2004, 6:29 PM

Post #9 of 12 (922 views)

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Re: [mkdutch] Twice the speed for the same price.

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a non-techie answer here!
I have my laguna antenna plugged into an access point, which is plugged into by a wireless router which:
provides ethernet networking
provides wireless inside/outside my house for my laptop when I feel like wandering.
I am experimenting with a wireless -b media adapter so as to play the hours of music on my hard drive through my stereo . . . we shall see.

David
David McL
WebJefe

johanson / Moderator

Feb 12, 2004, 7:06 PM

Post #10 of 12 (918 views)

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Re: [johanson] Twice the speed for the same price.

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If you can go out on your porch and see that antenna on the top of the office were Lagunanet is situated, you do not need to place the the antenna on the top of a tall pole. You simply need a line-of-site view between the two small dishes.

Please also understand that the main tower is about to be increased by 3 meters to a height of 33 meters or almost 110 feet.

Do your own site survey. Go outside and try to determine lowest point one could place the antenna where it would be line-of-site with the antenna mounted on the top of the 33 meter antenna tower.

reg767

Feb 13, 2004, 5:44 AM

Post #11 of 12 (907 views)

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Speed Test Site (download & Upload)

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Very good Speed Test site that many people use as the standard:

http://nyc.speakeasy.net/

mkdutch

Feb 13, 2004, 11:07 AM

Post #12 of 12 (881 views)

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Re: [DavidMcL] Twice the speed for the same price.

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Thanks for the reply David. What you are doing sounds like just the thing! I did't know if it would work.

Thanks again,
Kay