I realize this is pretty far off topic but I need to do something about my internet service. I have had ATT DSL service for about 15 years now. It started out poor and has only gotten worse. I am supposed to be getting 3 to 5 MB per second download speeds because I am more or less out in the country. I have never gotten above 200 kb per second download speed. When I run Ookla it shows speed better than that but I have never gotten what Ookla shows.
My only other option is to try Hughes Net. But I have heard different opinions about Hughes Net. So I thought I would ask a group of more technically minded people for their opinion if they have actually used Hughes Net. I understand that you have to sign a 2 year contract with them. And the other problem is if I drop ATT I won't have any choice for DSL as they are not accepting any new DSL customers.
When you have a contract with 5mb/s you have to :8
so 5:8= 200kb/s
I have a contract with 50mb/s, if i do the math 50:8 its in reallity 6,25 mb/s (your minimal dowload speed. My provider gives me around 70mb/s so i cant complain.
This is how the math works, if you want more speed you should change your contract and increase the mb/s.
I can't get any better contract. What I am getting is the best they have in my area. After some heavy rain earlier in the week I am now getting 20 to 50 kbs per second. I have been trying to download Zorin 15 lite for over 24 hours and it is not done yet.
I have tried the Verizon hotspot. It is very sporadic in my area. I can get a download speed of 20 Mbs per second one minute and 50 Kbs per second the next so it is pretty useless here also.
Where are you based?
Over here in NZ Elon Musk is trialling his Starlink satellite offering to residential customers. 140Mb connections for only a little more than fibre connections.
Is this available to you? I think they they use NZ as a test bed for many tech projects.
On the plus side, our fibre provider has started the equivalent of a price/speed war, giving those of us on 100Mb connections a free upgrade to 300Mb. Nice early Christmas present!
Hi rmorris, Thanks for your reply. I am in the southeast part of the U.S. I signed up for information about when Starlink would be available in this part of the U.S. but I never heard back from them. Also if I remember correctly the price for Starlink was almost 3 times the price of Hughes Net. Of course the speed is supposed to be much better.
I have finally gotten some decent internet service. Verizon has expanded their 4G and 5G areas so we can now use a Verizon hotspot for our internet. Our speeds are still not anywhere near cable or fiber but much better than the ATT dsl we had. We can now watch movies and other videos without the constant starting and stopping we had before.
Verizon occasionally drops the internet for a short while like 30 seconds or so but then comes right back. I can live with that.