Grand Am Off Topic Thread

[xeroinfinity]

Originally Posted by doctorhrdware

I Bought one of those Magicjack's. It is excellent, the audio quality is very good. As long as you have a DSL line it will work out great. Also have it attached to a computer that you leave on all the time. I am very happy with it, I am glad I bought it well worth the money.

Yeah Ive seen those commercials on tv, soudns to good to be true. lol Though I know a few peoples who have it now(with comcast)and they said it works better then comcast or vonage.
Cant beat that price, its $20 a year isnt it ?

One day I'll have a faster connection out there in the woods. lol
My satelite provider offers wild blue at a cut rate, might have to do that?! Well untill ATT gets off their ass'ss and installs those fiber-optics the government paid them hella money for.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! Mine was tits!

['97ventureowner]

Originally Posted by xeroinfinity

One day I'll have a faster connection out there in the woods. lol
My satelite provider offers wild blue at a cut rate, might have to do that?! Well untill ATT gets off their ass'ss and installs those fiber-optics the government paid them hella money for.

Fiber optic is great Verizon installed FiOS in our area 3 years ago and I get the 20 mbps download and 5 mbps upload service. Sure beats the old 27kbps dialup service I had. I'm in a rural area and cable is too expensive to run out our way due to lack of houses, and satellite internet was very costly. ( I have Directv and I think they wanted something like $500 to $600 to install the service and monthly costs were about $70 to $80 ) I'm now waiting for them to start up their FiOS TV service, hopefully later this year. Everything, including the phone, internet and tv service will come in to the house through the fiber optic cable.

[xeroinfinity]

Originally Posted by '97ventureowner

Fiber optic is great Verizon installed FiOS in our area 3 years ago and I get the 20 mbps download and 5 mbps upload service. Sure beats the old 27kbps dialup service I had. I'm in a rural area and cable is too expensive to run out our way due to lack of houses, and satellite internet was very costly. ( I have Directv and I think they wanted something like $500 to $600 to install the service and monthly costs were about $70 to $80 ) I'm now waiting for them to start up their FiOS TV service, hopefully later this year. Everything, including the phone, internet and tv service will come in to the house through the fiber optic cable.

Not to be nosey, but what's the 20 mbps cost a month ?

I have Dish I think for the wild blue its $40-50 a month plus a $100 for professional install, I might be able to void that and install it myself.
Wild blue directly would be close to $100 or more a month, just like the Hughsnet. HN costs a lot for the install, around $200 and they wont let you install it yourself.

I swear, dialup used to be faster.

[doctorhrdware]

Yes it is $19.99 a year or it you pay up for 5 years it is $12 per year.
That is what I am waiting for too. I want fiber and I want it now.

[Gir-_-]

maybe they're waiting for me to finish college so I can do it lol.. be in the hot sun, middle of farm land america laying down a thick ass heavy optic cable...

after the cable is laid down, they still gotta change out the routers and switches with faster new ones.... Technology is slowing coming lol

[doctorhrdware]

It took me close to 10 years to get DSL or high speed cable. Prior to that it was dial up and on a good day which was seldom. I would connect at 12k, most of the time it was at 1200K. Very painfully slow. Downloads took for ever, some took 24 hrs to complete.

[cboy2us]

and then people wonder what the flip happened to your phone.

['97ventureowner]

Originally Posted by xeroinfinity

Not to be nosey, but what's the 20 mbps cost a month ?

About $60/mo. I think they have specials once in awhile. Installation was free, and the router was free too. I read where the equipment they give you for free costs over $1000. I have this good sized box, they installed in my basement that handles my phone and internet, and hopefully later this year FiOS TV.It also contains a battery backup good for about 2 hrs. in case of a power outage, you can still use your phone, one issue digital phone has since it goes dead during a power outage, unlike a landline.

Originally Posted by Gir-_-

maybe they're waiting for me to finish college so I can do it lol.. be in the hot sun, middle of farm land america laying down a thick ass heavy optic cable...

after the cable is laid down, they still gotta change out the routers and switches with faster new ones.... Technology is slowing coming lol

If you don't mind me asking, where you live do they string the line on poles or bury it underground? In my area, it is generally strung up on telephone poles, but in some housing developments it is buried as there are no poles.I watched them back about 3 years ago when they brought the line down the road , installing it on the poles, quite a site. After they finished I had to wait about 3 months while they upgraded the switching station with the new equipment. My house is one of the farthest from our switching station and Verizon had told me it would've been useless to get DSL because of this as my speed would only be slightly higher than dialup, if that.

Originally Posted by doctorhrdware

It took me close to 10 years to get DSL or high speed cable. Prior to that it was dial up and on a good day which was seldom. I would connect at 12k, most of the time it was at 1200K. Very painfully slow. Downloads took for ever, some took 24 hrs to complete.

Back when I bought my first computer in 2002, it came bundled with AOL. I had that during the free period and a little bit beyond,(They gave me more free time as there were so many issues with AOL and the then new Windows XP always clashing they felt sorry for me always calling their support :lol; ) Anyways, while I was with AOL, I was in their beta testing program and were one of the first to try out their new versions they were coming out with ( 8.0 then eventually 9.0 ) Whenever there was a new version to try out or a major update, I would have to download it, which could take up to a day to do because it was so large. I used to leave the computer on all night and hope the connection would stay and allow it to fully download. Even simple programs and updates took so long. God I do not miss those days.

[xeroinfinity]

Originally Posted by cboy2us

and then people wonder what the flip happened to your phone.

Funny you should say that, everyone always says, "where were you?? I called and it just rang and rang ?"

Originally Posted by '97ventureowner

About $60/mo. I think they have specials once in awhile. Installation was free, and the router was free too. I read where the equipment they give you for free costs over $1000. I have this good sized box, they installed in my basement that handles my phone and internet, and hopefully later this year FiOS TV.It also contains a battery backup good for about 2 hrs. in case of a power outage, you can still use your phone, one issue digital phone has since it goes dead during a power outage, unlike a landline.

That's not a bad price for that. Yeah I bet the system equipment is expessive for either fiberoptics-FO or the sattelite internet. I know those who work on FO make killer money, even out this way in the BFE. All FO in this area is burried or soon will be. The tubes it goes in have been in the ground since 1997. :

Originally Posted by Gir-_-

maybe they're waiting for me to finish college so I can do it lol.. be in the hot sun, middle of farm land america laying down a thick ass heavy optic cable...

after the cable is laid down, they still gotta change out the routers and switches with faster new ones.... Technology is slowing coming lol

My exbrothernlaw works on FO only, on call 24/7/365, and is one of only 2-3 people who know how to connect and repair damaged FO within a 500-600 miles range of here, so he does do some driving. The job comes with all sorts of pirks, comp truck, free phones, laptop, etc etc.. He's a dick btw!

Originally Posted by '97ventureowner

Back when I bought my first computer in 2002, it came bundled with AOL. I had that during the free period and a little bit beyond,(They gave me more free time as there were so many issues with AOL and the then new Windows XP always clashing they felt sorry for me always calling their support :lol; ) Anyways, while I was with AOL, I was in their beta testing program and were one of the first to try out their new versions they were coming out with ( 8.0 then eventually 9.0 ) Whenever there was a new version to try out or a major update, I would have to download it, which could take up to a day to do because it was so large. I used to leave the computer on all night and hope the connection would stay and allow it to fully download. Even simple programs and updates took so long. God I do not miss those days.

Yeah downloading large files on dialup sucks! I know even some XP updates take forever. Thing that realy sucks for me is my ISP resets their servers every 12hrs so you get booted offline. Thank god for download programs! Torrents a great too! I downloaded a 2 GB movie a while back, Tokyo Gore Police, it only took a week and a half.

Have a great weekend everyone!

[doctorhrdware]

Aol=aohell, I had a program that would keep me online until the file was downloaded and no errors. I had AOL, then I switched to Earthlink. Then finally got Comcast for internet and TV, dumped Comcast, and went to AT&T for DSL.

[Gir-_-]

Originally Posted by '97ventureowner

If you don't mind me asking, where you live do they string the line on poles or bury it underground? In my area, it is generally strung up on telephone poles, but in some housing developments it is buried as there are no poles.I watched them back about 3 years ago when they brought the line down the road , installing it on the poles, quite a site. After they finished I had to wait about 3 months while they upgraded the switching station with the new equipment. My house is one of the farthest from our switching station and Verizon had told me it would've been useless to get DSL because of this as my speed would only be slightly higher than dialup, if that.

As long as you live anywhere in the US, you'll have underground cabling , if I'm not mistaken there are some stretching across the pacific and atlantic oceans, with also the use of satellites we communicate with the rest of the world lol



oh yea, its my birthday today

[xeroinfinity]

I live right in the middle of a triangle dead zone. It would realy suck to live in the upper midwest, no service for them!

I remember when I first got dialup I could have 4-5 windows open all loading at the same time and rather quickly. Now If I tried that none of them would probly load just get a "page no found" error.

Hey, Happy Bday Gir !!

['97ventureowner]

Originally Posted by Gir-_-

As long as you live anywhere in the US, you'll have underground cabling , if I'm not mistaken there are some stretching across the pacific and atlantic oceans, with also the use of satellites we communicate with the rest of the world lol

Yeah, that part I knew, what I should have said was if the new cable they were installing was going underground, or on a pole. One would think with technology and resources available today the line would be installed underground as much as possible. This minimizes the chance that a storm could come along and take down the network, or sabotage, etc. The main excuse in my area that they still install the lines on the poles is that it's cheaper. I'd rather spend a little more money now and know that it's done than having to do it in the future. But it's weird how some sections in my area, the cable is buried, while in others it's strung up on the pole.
I read an article a few years back commenting on the fact that the US still relies on stringing cable up on poles whereas many third world countries have invested the time and money to bury their cable, which is generally considered to be better.
Another article I read about 20 years ago stated that the cables that stretch across the oceans have to be maintained constantly because of the fact that the continents are still moving and sometimes a cable is in danger of breaking due to this, and among other dangers outlines in this article I came across : http://www.popsci.com/scitech/articl...otects-intrnet

[xeroinfinity]

Stoners outnumber drunks on road

['97ventureowner]

Originally Posted by xeroinfinity

Stoners outnumber drunks on road

...and using a cellphone while driving is just as bad as driving drunk!