" wrote in
:

On 24 Oct 2012 20:32:13 GMT, Han wrote:

" wrote in
m:

On 24 Oct 2012 15:27:38 GMT, Han wrote:

" wrote in
m:

On Wed, 24 Oct 2012 05:53:00 -0400, Ed Pawlowski
wrote:

On Wed, 24 Oct 2012 02:27:38 +0000 (UTC), DerbyDad03
wrote:




Actually, once they finally got me to someone who actually made
sense (the third person I chatted with) he made sure that I was
aware that any modem that I purchased from the approved list
would work with the *current* features and speeds. However,
should TWC upgrade their hardware and/or programming, those of us
who own on our modems would have to purchase another.

The tone of his chat was decidedly leaning towards the lease
option.

Sure, they get $48 a year from you. Most modems will cost less
than that and last 10 years. I had the same offer from the phone
company for DSL and chose to buy. Never needed tech support
either.

I generally lose a DSL modem every couple of years. No ESD or
lightning strike, it just stops working. AT&T no longer rents
them. They do spread the cost ($75, IIRC) over three months, if
you want.

I never understood the rationale for renting a router or buying
one from the ISP, though. They want a lot of money for something
that's dirt cheap online.

It's my understanding that Verizon uses some kind of modified
proprietary software. There is no modem rental - you get a router
as part of the package. My ActionTec MI424-WR has functioned since
the very beginning of FiOS (well, the first one's radio quit in a
week, but the second one has worked ever since). The radio of the
router is now weak and doesn't get everywhere, so I have wired a
DLink in the living room from the upstairs router to give us WiFi
and more ports here.

AT&T gives the option of a modem or router+modem. Actually, the
third option is to use your own modem. I bought their modem to
minimize problems (the installation in my AL house is a PITA and I
have to call them if I touch anything). Adding a router is usually
pretty easy (though in the above case...).

Some time Ineed to upgrade to a gigabit router and wiring, though.

Why? AFAIC, 100Base-T is plenty. Actually my WiFi is enough for
what I do over the network. DSL is way slower than it.

At the moment things are OK. I now have FiOS, and the speedtest just
now on speedtest.net says 40/33 Mbps up/down. Some time those speeds
are going to increase further (I think I started with 5/.75 or so).
Then the traffic between computers here is going to get more intense,
so I expect that I am getting close to occasionally get to the limits
of 100BaseT. Not this year or next, perhaps, but I need to keep my
eyes open for an upgrade to my ActionTec MI424-WR .

I get 3Mb/.3Mb on a good day (much better than .7Mb/.02Mb I get in my
other house), so a string and a tin can is good enough. But wireless
can easily get to 30Mb. What do you do that you need 100Mb between
computers? I don't think I've even connected mine together more than
a half dozen times.

I have a network attached storage system for backup. An older system, My
Book World Edition from Western Digital. It's nice to have it accessible
at speed.

--
Best regards
Han
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