Rural dialup users, there is hope!

[NZ]

I'd just like to make those people who are in places that cant get access to ADSL internet there is now a scheme called HiBIS which basically subsidises Sat net connections. It is funded by the federal goverment.

Basically if you can get ISDN access then you are eligible for 1 way sat with an ISDN uplink (or standrd modem if you chose). If you dont have ISDN then you are eligble for a 2 way sat.

The hardware and instillation is totally free and monthly bandwidth cost is subsidised. It is really cheap (by sattellite standard). They do have add ons and these vary between differnt ISP's. The one I am looking at you can upgrade to a dual channel up,lling and buy various bandwidth addons.

Sat is a little different than ADSL. For car buffs ADSL is much like a blower - instant speed. Sat is like a turbo small wait then WHOOOSH. It can be affected by heavy rainfall but having already had sat internet a few years ago its quite uncommon.

Here is a link to one of the providers I am looking at: http://www.bordernet.com.au/hibisisat.html

It's definitly worthwhile to do some research as some places are still quite exspensive for their offerings on this scheme (cough bigpond).

[XplosiveR6]

still looks too expensive compared to ADSL, its like 3 times the price and no unlimited

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

Originally Posted by EF_Dave

still looks too expensive compared to ADSL, its like 3 times the price and no unlimited

Granted, but if you can't get ADSL (because of the distance-to-exchange issue), then it's still certainly better then crappy old dial-up, particularly when you consider there would be a lot of rural dialup users who would be lucky to get a 28.8k connection, let alone anything approaching 33.6k...

[NZ]

Originally Posted by EF_Dave

still looks too expensive compared to ADSL, its like 3 times the price and no unlimited

True but your argument is invalid when you cant get it you can't compare to it lol.

At the moment I am on a 26.4kb connection thats the most it will connect at. Im only about 2km from an exhchange as well. But its the same story, they can't give a date when or even if it will be upgraded. I remember reading somewhere that you you must beable to get at least a 9.6k connection on dialup before they have to do something about it.

If you could get an ADSL connection then you'd have rocks in your head going for a SAt but when dialup is all you have it is pretty attractive. If you were to get onto a normal plan Equipmant charges are usually $300-$600 and an install fee of around $180 - 300 plus about double the bandwidth cost. Some places do have unlimited schemes but all of them I've seen are at least $99 for 128k bandwidth so it would nearly be better to get a dual IDSN line.

This whole scheme is aimed at farmers, people in rural area's who aren't going to mind paying that bit extra when they could spend a few minutes doing their online bankking instead of a few hours. I'm just glad they actually did something because internet connection is quite a hot issue within farming communities.

Hopefully when I get it I will beable to click on MSN once to log in and not retry 20 times lol

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

Originally Posted by EB MkII

Hopefully when I get it I will beable to click on MSN once to log in and not retry 20 times lol

Ahh, so it's not just me that has to do that when attempting to log into MSN? That's why I don't use it all that much...

[XplosiveR6]

my argument was that why should we have to pay 3 times the amount of normal users just because telstra are too slack to install decent phone lines, in this day and age having to deal with dial up is reduculus, the internet is becoming a very important part of our lives but the government are simply behind the eightball. Im stuck with ISDN, its still alot quicker then 56k dial up but its definately not fast enough for todays hi-tech web applications

[flappist]

If you live in the mulga or in town but are hanging off an older RIM you can usually get 128k ISDN. This is not expensive and has the ability to drop back to 64k when you receive an incoming or make an outgoing call.
There is a lot of confusion with regard to data rates a bit like pawer output on stereos.
128k ISDN will transfer a bee's dick under 16Kb/s uncompressed and up to 40Kb/s compressed. ISDN is ALWAYS 8Kb/s per channel (in aus), there are no "bad connections".
This means you can pull zip files or mpegs at 16Kb/s.
Analog 56k is 4-5Kb/s on a good day and usually 2-3Kb/s in the scrub.

Although it is not as fast as DSL or 1sat (or even 2sat) it has reasionably low latency of 30-60ms for most of Australia sites as opposed to 200ms for PSTN and 600-800 for 1sat.

All you need to do is apply for ISDN Enhanced (Onramp Home) and the nice telco man will deliver you a NT1+2 (ISDN modem) with a USB, async serial and S-Bus interface. You can then connect to your ISP provided they provide ISDN (most do)

I used this for years before DSL became available.

[XplosiveR6]

Originally Posted by flappist

If you live in the mulga or in town but are hanging off an older RIM you can usually get 128k ISDN. This is not expensive and has the ability to drop back to 64k when you receive an incoming or make an outgoing call.
There is a lot of confusion with regard to data rates a bit like pawer output on stereos.
128k ISDN will transfer a bee's dick under 16Kb/s uncompressed and up to 40Kb/s compressed. ISDN is ALWAYS 8Kb/s per channel (in aus), there are no "bad connections".
This means you can pull zip files or mpegs at 16Kb/s.
Analog 56k is 4-5Kb/s on a good day and usually 2-3Kb/s in the scrub.

Although it is not as fast as DSL or 1sat (or even 2sat) it has reasionably low latency of 30-60ms for most of Australia sites as opposed to 200ms for PSTN and 600-800 for 1sat.

All you need to do is apply for ISDN Enhanced (Onramp Home) and the nice telco man will deliver you a NT1+2 (ISDN modem) with a USB, async serial and S-Bus interface. You can then connect to your ISP provided they provide ISDN (most do)

I used this for years before DSL became available.

correct, but i think you may be confused about the difference bitween bits and bytes, the connection speed is measured by bits, so 128Kilobits per second is ISDN, when you download data, that is measure in bytes, which is bits divided by eight ( 1 byte = 8 bits), so 128kb/s /8 = a download speed of 16 kilobytes per second.

[flappist]

Originally Posted by EF_Dave

correct, but i think you may be confused about the difference bitween bits and bytes, the connection speed is measured by bits, so 128Kilobits per second is ISDN, when you download data, that is measure in bytes, which is bits divided by eight ( 1 byte = 8 bits), so 128kb/s /8 = a download speed of 16 kilobytes per second.

Where have I confused that?

[XplosiveR6]

my bad, its just that alot of people get confused between the two

[hornet]

The catch with ISDN is the data call costs. In most cases a ISDN call cost is charged at $0.30 per hour per channel. If your running at the full 128k (2x64k channels) then its $0.60 per hour just for the call costs. Then you have your ISP charges on top of that. Not much of a problem for the light user, but can add up awfully quickly if you accidently leave it on.

However Telstra & BigPond (*shudder*) have a packacge called BigPond ISDN. Which includes the ISDN Home rental (2x64k digital lines) and 128k connection to BigPond with unlimited downloads for $89.90 per month. The added bonus with this is all data call costs to the PigPond dialup number are waived - No internet call costs. To compare that to PSTN you would need to compare 2x PSTN lines, and a dialup account.

2x Homeline Plus = 59.90
1x BigPond unlimited dialup account = 28.95
Total = 88.85 + dialup charges & only 56k connection.

I can maintain 14kB on a 128k ISDN link.
But I'm spoilt at home with a 1536k ADSL link to myself

[flappist]

Originally Posted by hornet

The catch with ISDN is the data call costs. In most cases a ISDN call cost is charged at $0.30 per hour per channel. If your running at the full 128k (2x64k channels) then its $0.60 per hour just for the call costs. Then you have your ISP charges on top of that. Not much of a problem for the light user, but can add up awfully quickly if you accidently leave it on.

However Telstra & BigPond (*shudder*) have a packacge called BigPond ISDN. Which includes the ISDN Home rental (2x64k digital lines) and 128k connection to BigPond with unlimited downloads for $89.90 per month. The added bonus with this is all data call costs to the PigPond dialup number are waived - No internet call costs. To compare that to PSTN you would need to compare 2x PSTN lines, and a dialup account.

2x Homeline Plus = 59.90
1x BigPond unlimited dialup account = 28.95
Total = 88.85 + dialup charges & only 56k connection.

I can maintain 14kB on a 128k ISDN link.
But I'm spoilt at home with a 1536k ADSL link to myself

Data calls on residential services to ALL 0198 numbers (megapop equipped ISPs) including optus and aapt or even dodo are untimed.

But if you really want to kick *** and live in a TID POP you can now have your own private Megalink (2Mb symmetric) with 5/20GB for $900 inc gst.
Megalink normally shows less than 3ms latencey to the core routers.
Alas I dont and it costs $1400 for 1984Kb/s DDSLAS here :(
And for those who really have too much money, Telstra Ethernet 100Mb/s including 500/2000GB for only $22k/month

[The MaDDeSTMaN]

Originally Posted by flappist

Telstra Ethernet 100Mb/s including 500/2000GB for only $22k/month

Only 22k/month?!? What a deal! I'll take 10 thanks!

[hornet]

microsoft.com is hosted on a 40-46gbs link. Imagine there ISP bills ;)

[MotherNatureVer2]

OK so for us poor farmers who have NFI about this modern crap but we can only get crappy 32bps dial up crap wht does it all mean .........

Is this site(company) offering anything good ...... The base line price is not that much more than I pay for dial up for what Im lead to believe is a faster service that I can still use the phone line whilst on the net ......... Am I reading it all wrong ?????