internet on rattlesnake

jazzman · 07-22-2011, 01:03 AM

Went looking at island houses today and tried verizon 3g internet at all of them... Broadside of rattlesnake was ok, east side of sleeper was the best, mainland side of rattlesnake was a total bust as was the broadside of diamond.

Very frustrating since I need to be able to work from "home". I can't justify the $$$ for a weekend hangout.

IslandRadio · 07-22-2011, 07:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazzman

Went looking at island houses today and tried verizon 3g internet at all of them... Broadside of rattlesnake was ok, east side of sleeper was the best, mainland side of rattlesnake was a total bust as was the broadside of diamond.

Very frustrating since I need to be able to work from "home". I can't justify the $$$ for a weekend hangout.

We have officially petitioned Metrocast to deliver broadband to Rattlesnake (and I am presuming they will do Sleepers at the same time). Metrocast is currently "resisting" the idea - they have flatly refused to do it, however the franchise agreement is very clear - if we get 10 full time subscribers per mile for a minimum of one year, they have to do it.

I currently use Verizon on the mainland side of Rattlesnake (on the West side of the peninsula) and the signal is very good. The performance is VERY bad, but that's not a signal problem, it's an overloaded system problem. Over the weekend, I had a couple of friends over and one of them uses A,T+T - it worked fine (the performance was almost 10x that of Verizon, by the way). All of this on the mainland side of Rattlesnake.

Where on the mainland side of Rattlesnake were you looking? I'm surprised it didn't work there.

jazzman · 07-22-2011, 08:39 AM

I wasn't paying attention to signal strength. I was running speedtest on my verizon phone to see what I might get with tethered perf or a dedicated verizon "mifi".

I was seeing ping=over 1 second
download speeds of 100kbs
upload speeds of 50kbs

Clearly working from home isn't going to be very productive with that.

Guess I could look at hughsnet. The place has a wide open south view. But ping times would still be lousy, so picky vpn stuff wouldn't be great.

This all makes a hard decision much harder.

I was a little west of the peninsula on the mainline side (just look for the for sale signs)...

Guess I could pick up an AT&T hotspot and go play with it and return it within the 30 days. Cost isn't even really an object here.

I assume the islands ate all too far away for DSL to work?

IslandRadio · 07-22-2011, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazzman

I wasn't paying attention to signal strength. I was running speedtest on my verizon phone to see what I might get with tethered perf or a dedicated verizon "mifi".

I was seeing ping=over 1 second
download speeds of 100kbs
upload speeds of 50kbs

Clearly working from home isn't going to be very productive with that.

Guess I could look at hughsnet. The place has a wide open south view. But ping times would still be lousy, so picky vpn stuff wouldn't be great.

This all makes a hard decision much harder.

I was a little west of the peninsula on the mainline side (just look for the for sale signs)...

Guess I could pick up an AT&T hotspot and go play with it and return it within the 30 days. Cost isn't even really an object here.

I assume the islands ate all too far away for DSL to work?

We're going to have something over there after a while. It actually would be there now, but Metrocast blocked my efforts to bring high speed Internet to the island using my own equipment, so now going through the "official" channels - invoking the line extension in the franchise agreement Metrocast has with Alton.

Lots of people need this, so you're certainly not alone - which is why it's going to happen.

I think I might know which place you're looking at - the cottage with a lot of white lattice work at the front? Or is there another one over there...

jrc · 07-22-2011, 10:05 AM

As I mention in another thread, Verizon signal strength is great around the lake especially the west side. I've been using my phone and Blackberry for years with great coverage. This year I tried to tether my Blackberry. I can get four or five bars almost everywhere even inside my boat. But the data rates are horrible. Some mornings I can only get 50 kbps, late night I can usually get 200 kbps. Early in the spring I was getting 800kbps all the time. I never bothered to measure ping times, I'm sure it's slow.

I'm really disappointed with this, others in my marina said that this year seems worse. One lawyer had to go home to work one nice weekend, just couldn't get enough data across. This clearly is a not a RF issue, it's a network issue. Never trust a Bellhead to set up a data network. This is posted by a reformed Bellhead.

jazzman · 07-22-2011, 12:54 PM

yea, the wall of white lattice cottage (guess I'd have to paint that some neutral color if I was to buy it)...

I can imagine congestion being an issue with all the people around in the summer... And I can see Verizon being reluctant to increase capacity for 90 high demand days a year.

I went to the at&t wireless site and it didn't even want to sell me a mifi with an Alton zip code.

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07-22-2011, 01:03 AM	#1
jazzman Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Mont Vernon NH & Big Barndoor Island Posts: 327 Thanks: 4 Thanked 185 Times in 63 Posts	Went looking at island houses today and tried verizon 3g internet at all of them... Broadside of rattlesnake was ok, east side of sleeper was the best, mainland side of rattlesnake was a total bust as was the broadside of diamond. Very frustrating since I need to be able to work from "home". I can't justify the $$$ for a weekend hangout.

07-22-2011, 08:39 AM	#3
jazzman Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Mont Vernon NH & Big Barndoor Island Posts: 327 Thanks: 4 Thanked 185 Times in 63 Posts	I wasn't paying attention to signal strength. I was running speedtest on my verizon phone to see what I might get with tethered perf or a dedicated verizon "mifi". I was seeing ping=over 1 second download speeds of 100kbs upload speeds of 50kbs Clearly working from home isn't going to be very productive with that. Guess I could look at hughsnet. The place has a wide open south view. But ping times would still be lousy, so picky vpn stuff wouldn't be great. This all makes a hard decision much harder. I was a little west of the peninsula on the mainline side (just look for the for sale signs)... Guess I could pick up an AT&T hotspot and go play with it and return it within the 30 days. Cost isn't even really an object here. I assume the islands ate all too far away for DSL to work?

07-22-2011, 10:05 AM	#5
jrc Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: NH Posts: 2,689 Thanks: 33 Thanked 439 Times in 249 Posts	As I mention in another thread, Verizon signal strength is great around the lake especially the west side. I've been using my phone and Blackberry for years with great coverage. This year I tried to tether my Blackberry. I can get four or five bars almost everywhere even inside my boat. But the data rates are horrible. Some mornings I can only get 50 kbps, late night I can usually get 200 kbps. Early in the spring I was getting 800kbps all the time. I never bothered to measure ping times, I'm sure it's slow. I'm really disappointed with this, others in my marina said that this year seems worse. One lawyer had to go home to work one nice weekend, just couldn't get enough data across. This clearly is a not a RF issue, it's a network issue. Never trust a Bellhead to set up a data network. This is posted by a reformed Bellhead.

07-22-2011, 12:54 PM	#6
jazzman Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Mont Vernon NH & Big Barndoor Island Posts: 327 Thanks: 4 Thanked 185 Times in 63 Posts	yea, the wall of white lattice cottage (guess I'd have to paint that some neutral color if I was to buy it)... I can imagine congestion being an issue with all the people around in the summer... And I can see Verizon being reluctant to increase capacity for 90 high demand days a year. I went to the at&t wireless site and it didn't even want to sell me a mifi with an Alton zip code.