Forums > Areas > Jalisco's Lake Chapala Region

johanson

May 9, 2006, 2:37 PM

Post #1 of 16 (1392 views)

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no internet

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There haven't been very many posts today on the ""Lake Chapala Region" forum. Could that be because Prodigy Infinitum has been down again since mid morning? It was down twice in March and twice in April, both times for about 8 hours.And now two times in May. At least they are offering a backup dialup connection.

I feel sorry for those who are using Mexico Wireless here in town. I understand they are re-sellers of ADSL and when ADSL is down they of course, would be down. Sadly they do not offer a backup dialup connection.

Oh and because I am a fan of Lagunanet, I won't mention that I had some interference problems with them when connecting to their WEST access point last weekend. (They changed channels or frequencies and my problems vanished). Having both Lagunanet and Prodigy. I have never experienced a period when I did not have a high speed connection with one or the other.

(This post was edited by johanson on May 9, 2006, 2:44 PM)

RickS

May 9, 2006, 3:47 PM

Post #2 of 16 (1368 views)

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Re: [johanson] no internet

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So, Johanson, what was your total 'capital outlay' and on-going monthly cost in US $ to have this 'failsafe' high-speed access to the Internet? Is there some explanation (ha ha) from Telmex for this kind of downtime with Prodigy in the last few months?

bournemouth

May 9, 2006, 4:12 PM

Post #3 of 16 (1358 views)

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Re: [johanson] no internet

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I'm thinking we all need to call/visit Telmex and ask about credit for time down - a ridiculous idea I know - but if enough people start asking questions, maybe we could at least find out what is happening.

jaybear

May 9, 2006, 6:10 PM

Post #4 of 16 (1342 views)

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Re: [bournemouth] no internet

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I suspect that TelMex is adding or redoing some things, as the most common time that Prodigy goes down is 11 a.m. Almost like it was planned. It would be nice to find someone at TelMex who could actually tell us what is happening. However, I suspect that they are like Adelphia was in our little town in Mass. That is, the office staff is probably totally out of the loop as to what is happening with the internet service. It might be possible to reach a friendly geek at their internet service number, but I have trouble understanding this stuff in English, much less Spanish.

The good news is that I am now set up with Prodigy dial-up as an alternative. This was very easy to do, even for Ye Olde English Major. On Windows, click on: start, control panel, connect to, show all connections, network connections, create a new connection. Yes, I did have to have my ID and password from TelMex in order to connect. It is only 48 whatsis, so it works real slow, but it does work.

The scary thing is that I am ALMOST getting used to this.
"Don't believe everything you think" - Maxine

JayBear

johanson

May 9, 2006, 7:21 PM

Post #5 of 16 (1325 views)

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Re: [RickS] no internet

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Rick: rather than boring you with why I get some of my internet for free down here, let me show you the cost schedule for Prodigy, the only source of ADSL down here.

512/128 kb/sec ADSL connection $37 US
1000/256 kb/s ADSL connection $64 US
1300/384 kb/s ADSL connection $106 US
2,000/ ?? kb/s ADSL connection $490 US

That's right. $490 US per month for a 2 meg ADSL connection here in Mexico.
It (all of the ADSL connections) is offered by the telephone company
TelMex, the only company offering DSL here in Mexico. Oh the 3rd richest
person in the world, Carlos Slim, owns TelMex. Yes, by US definition, TelMex
would be called a monopoly

If you do not believe my figures, visit
http://www.prodigy.com.mx/...m_adsl/h_planes.html

When you see, for example, "$349.00 al mes + IVA" that means, 349 pesos per
month plus 15% sales tax and at 10.8 pesos per US dollar that equates to
$37.16 US per month.

Guess what one pays in the US?

A small fractrion of the above.

Check out Verizon for example at

http://www22.verizon.com/...packages/default.asp

You will see that a 768 over 128 kb/s costs $14.95 per month while a
3,072 over 768 kb/s connection only costs $29.95

remember in Mexico one pays $490 US dollars per month for a slightly slower connection.

mparrino

May 10, 2006, 7:57 AM

Post #6 of 16 (1281 views)

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Re: [johanson] no internet

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Pete,
So what is the lowest speed I could have in order to use my Vonage phone system?
Thanks,
Marcia
Marcia

RickS

May 10, 2006, 12:03 PM

Post #7 of 16 (1254 views)

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Re: [johanson] no internet

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Now we know one of the ways that Carlos Slim got to be the 3rd richest person in the world!

But with respect to DSL prices NOB. A note on the Verizon site you provided sums it up very well;
" Just a reminder: DSL offers vary by location". AND, it varies with what other packages one has with the provider. For example, the prices you quoted from the Verizon site require one to have a "qualified voice package" from Verizon and sign up for a year of service (and the modem is provided free). If one did not have a qualified voice package from them and did not want to commit to the annual contract, that same service from them cost $37.95/mo and the modem must either be rented or purchased for $39.95.

AND, in my part of the country Qwest is the BOC and there is no other (DSL) competition. Their current DSL promotion, if accompanied by a qualified voice package, is around $30/mo for 1.3/512 speed on an annual contract if one wants to use MSN as the ISP (which I don't!). After one year the price goes up to the non-promotional fee, currently around $36 plus modem. They also offer something they call Naked-DSL... just the DSL... for around $15/mo plus a $5 modem rental, and you find your own ISP (which I did but cost an additional $25.75 for Internet access and POP3/web email... so I was paying $45.75 for my high-speed Internet connection). I recently changed, on a promotion, to my cable provider and get 5meg/512k service (I actually get 7meg down!) for $29.95/mo the first year with free modem and the first two months free, and $35 thereafter.

Anyway, the original point was that high-speed service at Lakeside is available, but costs more. But given that you don't have 'any' heat nor air-conditioning costs (and a lot of other more desirable cost structures), spending more on high-speed Internet service wouldn't bother me a bit!

Papirex

May 10, 2006, 1:56 PM

Post #8 of 16 (1232 views)

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Re: [mparrino] no internet

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Vonage recommends an upload speed of at least 90 KPS. http://www.vonage.com/index.php?refer_id=27400178 You will have to hunt to find that info. There is also a link to test your Internet upload and download speeds.

I think that 90 KPS is a little on the low side. When I first started using Vonage in Cuernavaca, I had a 256/128 connection. I used to get tested upload speeds of about 90-100+ KPS pretty consistently. The voice quality was often garbled. Just about the time that I had decided to get a faster speed, Cablemas did an upgrade and upgraded me to 512/256 at no extra cost. I now get 240-250+ tested upload speeds pretty consistently. I\m still paying just $320 Pesos per month for cable broadband. 1024/512 KPS service is available, but for a home user what I’ve got now is just fine.

We still have the occasional problem of a half dozen words fading so low in volume that we have to ask the person we are talking to, to repeat them. I think that is probably an infrastructure problem and not Vonages fault. We are very happy with the Vonage service. For US$25 Bucks a month we keep in close contact with our family nob.

Vonage recently added free service to five European countries. Until late last year one of my sons was stationed in London, England. He is now back in The USA. If the free service had been available while he was there, I could have saved all of 3 Cents a minute when we called him there.

Rex

"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved" - Victor Hugo

(This post was edited by RexC on May 10, 2006, 2:01 PM)

mparrino

May 10, 2006, 2:11 PM

Post #9 of 16 (1225 views)

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Re: [RexC] no internet

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I guess I should have looked it up myself, but thanks for the info. anyway, Rex.
And yes, the news of Europe being included is great - I have a sister in Ireland and good friends in both Italy and Spain, so it will make a huge difference to me. Now if they would only include Mexico, we'd all be sitting pretty...

Marcia
Marcia

jaybear

May 10, 2006, 5:52 PM

Post #10 of 16 (1194 views)

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Re: [mparrino] no internet

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Two points to add to this discussion:

(1) I really should be happy with Prodigy from Telmex. In our quaint little village in eastern Massachusetts, we only got high-speed internet service about 3 years ago, and this was from Adelphia, God help us, and we got a combo package with our cable TV service. For the first year, they had brown-outs in the late afternoons, and I had to switch to dial-up which was faster. So, I should be happy to be in a big town like Ajijic that has a choice of two semi-reliable sources of a high-speed internet connection. As a side point, I remember when I first got Prodigy back in the days (around 1992?) when the internet was a novelty, and I was using it to transmit files because it was faster than FedEx, if one could make it work. Email jokes were unheard-of. How far we have come!

(2) We regularly use Skype to make phone calls via our Telmex/Prodigy internet service. Skype works quite well, the voices are clear as a bell, and it costs only about 2 cents a minute, maybe less; we buy minutes in Euros. The software download is free. We are quite happy with it.
"Don't believe everything you think" - Maxine

JayBear

1ajijic

May 14, 2006, 10:20 AM

Post #11 of 16 (1107 views)

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Re: [jaybear] no internet

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Only at 11:00 what about today, I doubt they are working Sunday! Crappy service!- Is it just me. The DSL is up, I grant you..but now it only sort of works. You are merrily clicking along and the page stalls, you wait, no hour glass and finally the can't get to that page page opens up, and then you can't get anywhere else either! Now if you check the network connection you are still connected but so what!! So you disconnect and reconnect and then it works again..for a while! I am getting tired of this. Is there anywhere you can call?? Between the two of us our Spanish is more than passable.
http://www.newbeginningsmexico.com

Rolly

May 14, 2006, 10:39 AM

Post #12 of 16 (1102 views)

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Re: [1ajijic] no internet

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I have that same problem from time to time. I discovered that it is not usually the DSL that is acting up, rather it is my firewall that is blocking action. If I close the firewall, the page will load. Then I reopen the firewall, and all goes well until it decides to act up again. Only once in a while is it not the firewall, it is Telmex that is at fault.

Rolly Pirate

song_of_joy

May 14, 2006, 11:54 AM

Post #13 of 16 (1089 views)

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Re: [Rolly] no internet

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Actually, Infinitum has had serious problems since Friday a.m. When I called for technical assistance, they told me it is a problem in the entire zone. Tonala had service, but Tlaquepaque did not. I don't know if all of Zapopan and Guadalajara were down. Near Plaza Mexico, no one had DSL service.

I had intermittent connections yesterday and have been able to get on today, although on Sundays I'm not online all day.

The good thing is that they'll try harder to restore service to an entire zone than to a smaller group.

johanson

May 14, 2006, 1:18 PM

Post #14 of 16 (1080 views)

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Re: [song_of_joy] no internet

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It's not only you. I know several folks with Infinitum who are and have been having problems in the greater Chapala-Ajijic area since last Friday. I had problems through Tuesday. But after then, I haven't been able to hookup to my Infinitum connection at all, but that is because I just left for NoB. I am just 50 Km south of Vancouver, BC in the states and all I have is the ability to hook up to my Mexican prodigy account via a local telephone # (That's right, Prodigy provides local numbers throughout much of the US for you to connect to your Mexican Prodigy account

Hey the sun is actually out up here and at 1PM local time the outside temp is up to 64 F; oh for those of you from the rest of the world, that stands for 18 C

Yes I know we Americans are sometimes slow to change. Heck we have had the same President now for 6 years,

esperanza

May 14, 2006, 1:42 PM

Post #15 of 16 (1072 views)

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Re: [johanson] no internet

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I hesitate to post, but what the heck...no outages for me in Jardines de Guadalupe since I got home two weeks ago.

<Bows and prays to Prodigy gods for continued service. Offers firstborn.>

http://www.mexicocooks.typepad.com

jaybear

May 14, 2006, 3:53 PM

Post #16 of 16 (1054 views)

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Re: [esperanza] no internet

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We have had continuous service (I think) here in lower Chula Vista for the last several days. Seems odd, but there it is, no interruptions.

Excuse me while I go light a few votive candles.

And Esperanza, welcome back, and thanks for the prayers! Can't hurt, might help (CHMH?)
"Don't believe everything you think" - Maxine

JayBear