Broadband Internet Access in Dryden
"A patchwork of solutions"
| Dialup | Wireless Internet | DSL | Satellite | Radio Frequency | Cable | Electric Lines |
Availability of Broadband Internet Access in the town of Dryden ranges from Dialup to Cable Modem access. There are some things going on in the government at a state and federal level to change this. There has also been a lot of talk in the local papers. This website is here to help educate Broadband Internet consumers on the latest details of access in the town of Dryden, New York.
Government Information: Federal Information State Senate State Assembly Governor's Office
News: Ithaca Journal Tompkins Weekly
Glossary of Terms: downstream upstream
Speed Chart Speed Comparison Company Information
Major Players: Frontier / Frontiernet.net, AmericaOnline (AOL), LightLink, Clarity Connect http://www.frontieronline.com/ http://www.aol.com http://www.lightlink.com http://www.clarityconnect.com
Pros: Available anywhere there is a phone line
Cons: 56Kbps is the top speed, while you are connected you can't receive phone calls, you have to have a service like AmericaOnline to connect to
Speed: 56Kbps (typically around 45 Kbps downsteam, 30 Kbps upstream)
Costs: Cost of phone line, cost of ISP (internet service provider)
Coverage: Anywhere there's a phone line
Other Details: Slow; Dryden Town Board member Mary Ann Sumner uses dialup from her West Dryden home
Dialup with an Accelerator
The 5X accelerator introduced by Juno and NetZero and available on most dial-up ISPs now.
Major Players: Juno, NetZero http://www.juno.com http://www.netzero.net/
Pros: Five times faster than dialup! "most" dial-up ISPs have some sort of accelerator.
Cons: Still slow, images compressed
Speed:
NetZero: "Speed reference based upon comparison to nationally available dial-up ISPs, set at maximum acceleration. NetZero HiSpeed 3G accelerates certain web page text and graphics when compared to standard dial-up Internet service. Actual results may vary. Some web pages such as secure or encrypted web pages will not be accelerated. NetZero HiSpeed 3G is not a broadband service and actual data transmission rates are not faster than standard dial-up Internet service. Transmission of files including, without limitation, streaming audio or video, digital photographs, MP3 or other music files, executable files and other downloads, is not faster using NetZero HiSpeed 3G than with standard dial-up service. NetZero HiSpeed 3G may not be compatible with proxy based software or services such as content filters or firewalls. NetZero HiSpeed 3G is only compatible with Platinum service and specified browsers. Available only for Windows."
Costs: $14.95/month, current offer has 9.95/month for the first 12 months
Coverage: Anywhere you have a landline / dialtone
Other Details: Juno and NetZero are now the same company - United Online! http://www.unitedonline.net
I had [Dialup with an Accelerator] and it did speed normal internet usage as advertised. This is because downloaded pictures and ads were compressed before sending. That lowered the quality of pictures and some other items, but most of those are ads anyhow, so it didn't matter. If you were looking at photo albums, for example, then the 5X needed to be disabled in order to view them in their original resolution and quality. Also, downloads like programs and updates cannot be compressed, so come at normal dial-up speeds."
Major Players: VerizonWireless ( http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/mobileoptions/nationalaccess/index.jsp?action=nationalAccess )
Pros: "Take care of business virtually anytime, anywhere"
Cons: Only works in places where you have cell phone coverage, not a very fast solution
Speed: NationalAccess is capable of data speeds bursting up to 144 kbps, delivering average speeds up to 60 to 80 kbps. Speed claim based on our network tests with 5 MB FTP data files, without compression. Actual throughput speed and coverage vary. (from VerizonWireless' website)
Costs: Variety of connection plans, zip code dependent, $59.99 to $79.00 or more. NationalAccess service requires PC Card or NationalAccess data-capable phone using a Mobile office kit, sold separately. Plus, manage the business and Internet applications you need with VZAccess Manager, a single easy-to-use control panel.
Coverage: Anywhere your cell phone works
Other Details: My mom and dad use this service. It works for them because they spend the summer on Cape Cod at a cottage and the winter in a house in Florida. With this service they can have a single access to the Internet and don't have to pay for access for the 6 months they aren't home. They can also use it when they drive from Florida to Cape Cod and back from the car. If you have cell phone coverage at your house this might be a solution for you.
Major Players: Frontier Communications Solutions http://www.frontieronline.com/
Pros: 256K Speed
Cons: Not available everywhere
Speed: 256K Speed
Costs: varying costs, combine telephone/television/internet for a "save more" deal
Coverage: Doesn't reach every road in Dryden
Other Details: This just reached parts of Canaan Road in Caroline as noted in the Ithaca Journal.
Rumors\Thoughts\Hearsay:
1. From what I hear, there's about a 3 mile limit from the "Central Office" (CO) for DSL, and I assume that to be line miles as opposed to "as the crow flies." Canaan Rd. intersection with Harford Rd. is very close to 3 miles from the Slaterville CO on the corner of 79 and Buffalo Rd. If it works there, it would work out Route 79 almost to the county line and Buffalo Hill Rd. almost to Caroline Center. So I just measured and I'm 2.25 miles from the CO in Etna. The only problem is that I'm a Verizon customer and their CO is on Pleasant Grove Rd. in Cayuga Heights. I wonder if Frontier would charge me less to bring me DSL than TWC's RoadRunner $6,000 figure . :-)
Major Players: Wild Blue Satellite ( http://www.wildblue.com/ ), HughesNet ( http://www.hughesnet.com )
Pros: Available almost everywhere
Cons: Forfeit fee if early cancellation (WildBlue), 15 month commitment (HughesNet), WildBlue availability for 14850 and 13053: We apologize, but due to overwhelming demand, we are not currently performing installations in your area. We hope to resume in the coming months.
Speed:
WildBlue: "Fast Download Speeds (up to 1.5Mbps)" "Fast Upload Speeds (up to 256 Kbps)" - from the marketing material
WildBlue: "My WildBlue runs around 512/100 Kbps (downstream/upstream)" - from an actual WildBlue customer in Dryden
HughesNet: HughesNet speeds are based on download speeds of up to 1.5 Mbps for HughesNet ProPak service, 1 Mbps for HughesNet Pro service, and 700 Kbps for HughesNet Home service. Actual speeds vary based on the amount of traffic on the Internet, content on a particular Website, or by the overall performance and configuration of your computer. Stated speeds not guaranteed. Dial-up service comparison based on standard dial-up connection at 56 Kbps.
Costs:
WildBlue: $49.95 to $79.95 per month, $299.00 Equipment Price, Free Install (usually $179.95)
HughesNet: Upfront purchase of equipment: $59.99 to $79.99 per month, $399.98 equipment and installation (after $100 mail-in rebate!)
HughesNet: Promotional Plan: $99.99 to $119.99 per month, for 15 months then to upfront pricing as noted above, no equipment purchase or installation fee outright as it is built into the price
Coverage: WildBlue doesn't appear available in 14850 or 13053
Other Details: My friend A. has HughesNet at her rural house in Lansing. My friend D. has WildBlue at his Robertson's Corner area house in Dryden. I'll ask them for their personal feelings (and pricing)
A WildBlue satellite user reports: "During peak times, like late afternoon and evenings [the downstream/upstream speed] will drop, but more significant is the amount of idle time between short bursts of data during peak times. Another disadvantage is the latency, the time it takes from "enter" to get to satellite and back to earth, to stops along the way on the internet, back to satellite and back to my computer, in theory taking less than a second, but in reality taking several seconds. On RoadRunner, it seems almost instantaneous. Also, a downpour will knock off WildBlue briefly, but surprisingly infrequently. I've got to say it sure beats dial-up at 31,200 bps which was the best I could get with a 56K modem on the line where I live."
Radio Frequency (Lightlink: Residential 5.2 / 5.7GHz radio connection where available)
Major Players: Lightlink http://www.lightlink.com/, ClarityConnect http://www.clarityconnect.com/
Pros: Fast connection, doesn't require any wiring or laying cable as everything is done via radio signals
Cons: You must have Line-Of-Site (LOS) to an antennae. The towers with these antennas are not up all over Dryden, limited coverage. Lightlink rule: "Each install must allow rebroadcast to other houses that can not connect directly."
Speed:
Clarity Connect: 1Mbps, 2Mbps, 3Mbps packages http://www.clarityconnect.com/pages.html?category=access
Lightlink: Speed not stated
Costs:
Clarity Connect: You'll have to inquire http://www.clarityconnect.com/pages.html?category=access
Lightlink: $600 install, $60/month, $600/year, 1 year
contract.
Coverage: Limited in Dryden as of March 14th, 2007
Other Details: Chuck Bartosh, the owner / manager of ClarityConnect is a Dryden resident.
Major Players: Time Warner ( http://www.timewarnercable.com/centralny/ )
Pros: Fast, relatively inexpensive, if you have cable tv access you probably can get a cable modem. They will come to your house and setup your wireless network too! Though its more fun to learn how to do it and then you'll have better control if anything happens.
Cons: $44.95 was enough to keep one of my neighbors from getting a broadband connection
Speed: Triple the speed of DSL claim is based on Road Runner's standard maximum download speed of 5.0 Mbps versus the standard DSL package's maximum download speed of 1.5 Mbps. Dial-up speed comparisons are based on Road Runner's maximum download speed of 5.0 Mbps versus the average maximum download speeds of 28k and 56k modems. Actual speeds may vary.
Costs: $44.95 per month
Coverage: Anywhere that Time Warner Cable runs, which isn't everywhere in town.
"NOTE: Twenty (25) homes per mile of AERIAL PLANT = MUST BUILD No make ready costs to customer. Per Tom Doheny 04/06. Exceptions: Town of Danby, Town of Dryden, and Village of Groton Underground extension is calculated separately."
See the letter to a Dryden resident (with an Ithaca mailing address) and the Line Extension Subscriber Construction calculation tool:
Line Extension document ("Does not meet our return on investment formula.")
Other Details: This is what I have at my house / home office and I'm happy with the speed and uptime (connectivity)
Electric Lines / Broadband over
Powerline Line (BPL) - By utilizing the medium-voltage power lines of
the local power utility, the company's focus is to provide affordable, broadband
Internet services to homes and businesses. Service can be delivered by standard
WiFi Wireless communication or low voltage power plug modem.
Major Players: New Visions Power Line Communications, LLC (of Syracuse, Carmen N. Branca principal), http://www.nvplc.com/
Pros: Anywhere there is a power line, an internet transmission can be delivered, high speed, plugs into any power outlet in your house
Cons: Not available in Dryden / NYSEG (only available in: Solvay, Lakeland, Sherrill, Kenwood, Oneida, Vernon, Churchville, Camillus, Syracuse, Westvale, Fairmont)
Speed: "Initially, our systems will operate at 200 Mbps raw throughput. We expect the speeds to continuously improve as advancements in technology continue."
Costs: $28.95 High Speed Internet, $56.90 Premium Package (High Speed Internet and Telephone Service)
Coverage: Only available in Syracuse / Manlius and then only within National Grid homes. Lobbying will be required to get NYSEG to partner with New Visions for this service.
Other Details: They haven't invested much money in their internet presence: http://www.nvplc.com/index.htm
Government Information:
details coming soon
details coming soon
details coming soon
details coming soon
News:
Ithaca Journal (http://www.ithacajournal.com)
Rural business owners seek faster Internet (Jan. 13th, 2007)
Spitzer seeks to spread broadband to rural areas (Jan. 13th, 2007)
Broadband access: Don't create digital divide (Ithaca Journal Editorial, Jan. 19th, 2007)
Follow File: Rural Internet options slowly increase (Ithaca Journal, Feb. 20th, 2007)
Rural business owners seek faster Internet
Article published Jan 13, 2007
SLATERVILLE SPRINGS — Jim Nagel and his wife, Ida Wolff, run a small,
rural furniture-making business on Canaan Road near Slaterville Springs, east of
Ithaca. While much of his work is hands-on, paperwork could go faster if his
only Internet option weren't tortoise-paced dial-up.
It can take as long as 20 minutes for his eBay page to load, but he has put up with it to buy equipment. Wolff and Nagel haven't created a Web site yet for the business because, with a dial-up connection, Nagel imagines it's too slow to get much done. Some supplier catalogues have switched to online only, so Nagel no longer uses them because it takes too long with dial-up.
In rural pockets around Tompkins County, such as Canaan Road, Nagel and his neighbors still suffer from lack of broadband service. Residents and businesses are at a disadvantage to their urban counterparts.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who has made reviving the Upstate economy one of the major goals of his new administration, sees spreading broadband access as a major tool to attract jobs to Upstate New York. In October 2006, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., called for comprehensive rural broadband service to make it easier for rural communities to keep up in an economy that demands high-speed communication and technology.
A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office says that 30 percent of urban and suburban homes have access to broadband Internet compared to 17 percent of rural homes.
Caroline Town Supervisor Don Barber has said he wants more broadband service in his rural area. It could serve people such as Wolff and Nagel.
“A lot of people out there are hurting because (while) some people are waiting for their dial-up, the guy with broadband has already made the sale and gone home,” Barber said.
Michael Ludgate, another Canaan Road resident, said he does most photo and music work on a high-speed connection at his business, Ludgate Farms. At home, his only option has been dial-up. Several months ago, when Frontier, his phone company, advertised broadband through the phone line, he promptly ordered it. After Frontier examined the line, he learned it wouldn't work.
It has to do with distance from a switch, according to Frontier technician Matt Pritchett.
“DSL (digital subscriber line) uses the phone line, and it stops at a defined line,” Pritchett said of how Frontier high-speed Internet services work in the Slaterville Springs area. “It depends not just on distance, but numbers of routers.”
That means while Ludgate is about a mile farther up Canaan Road and unable to get high-speed service, there's a possibility his neighbors, Wolff and Nagel, who live closer to the switch in Slaterville Springs, might be able to get high-speed through Frontier, Pritchett said.
There's some good news on the horizon — high-speed Internet through the airwaves, for $29.95 a month.
Chuck Bartosch, CEO of Clarity Connect, said he hopes to have service through a different technology — wireless Internet — available for residential customers in Tompkins County by the end of 2007. The radio service will utilize existing towers along with new ones, he said. Speeds are similar to or faster than broadband or DSL, he said.
“Cell phones are ‘mobile' coverage over a wide area while wireless Internet is typically ‘fixed' coverage,” he said. “This means that we install a dedicated wireless link between the customer's home and our network, though within their home they can usually access the Net wherever they want, wirelessly. We work in the unlicensed radio frequency bands.”
That means that by the end of the year, Nagel and Ludgate should have the option of losing their dial-up connections to this high-speed option.
“Our immediate areas for expansion are Danby, Dryden and Lansing, to be followed by Enfield and Caroline,” Bartosch said.
“Time Warner Cable provides Internet in some areas for everyone that wants it, but some people in less populated areas (of Tompkins County) can only have dial up,” Barber said.
According to Jeff Unitus, a Time Warner Cable spokesperson, Time Warner is required to provide service if there are 30 residents per mile.
“We are much more generous than that,” Unitus said.
Time Warner provides service in cases where 15 to 20 houses occupy a mile as a result of providing other services in sparsely populated areas.
“It makes sense for us to provide these services because we still see a return on our investment,” Unitus said.
In some cases, Unitus doesn't see a desire for broadband.
“We're not hearing from a lot of people in rural areas that aren't getting service,” Unitus said. “Those that are living in the middle of the woods often do not want Internet.”
Cell phone companies such as Verizon and Sprint are beginning to offer wireless broadband Internet for laptops through cell phone technology. While such plans offer customers the flexibility of using their laptop wherever there's cell phone service, for now, that won't help in places such as Canaan Road, which borders Hammond Hill State Forest. Not only is dial-up service still the only option, there isn't any cell phone service there either.
Where there is cell service, Verizon's BroadbandAccess is a wireless network that moves at the speed of broadband, and users are not in jeopardy of completely dropping their signal in the middle of an important download. It uses Verizon's Evolution Data Optimized (EV-DO) network technology, and customers must subscribe.
BroadbandAccess expanded to Tompkins County Dec. 18, 2006 and covers Lansing to the City of Ithaca including Cornell University and Ithaca College.
“This gives business people and consumers (in Ithaca) higher connectivity and more mobility than anyone in the greater Ithaca area,” said John O'Malley, Verizon public relations manager for Upstate New York.
According to Barber, the Caroline Town Supervisor, communities in Herkimer County have gotten town-wide wireless access by leveraging money from public and private entities.
WavHostis a Frankfurt, N.Y.-based company that offered wireless service in that rural town, just east of Utica. According to one company official, WavHost approached the Village of Frankfurt with the idea for village-wide wireless access, and over the past 12 to 18 months, the company has gotten overwhelming feedback from the township.
WavHost also has spread its wireless access to the rural citizens of Frankfurt who have no other option for Internet other than dial-up according to the official. The catch to WavHost's community service is that users pay $30 a month in the village, and $40 for those living on the outskirts of the village.
Verizon's O'Malley said the burden a city or town takes by providing wireless access is the maintenance and customer service that Internet companies provide.
“To expect a city to put (the kind of money Verizon does) into a wireless network is a lot,” O'Malley said.
Broadband access: Don't create
digital divide
Article published Jan 19, 2007
Those who enjoy high-speed, broadband Internet service were probably shocked by
recent news reports in The Journal and elsewhere that detailed how some rural
areas still rely on painstakingly slow dial-up service.
The good news is that Gov. Eliot Spitzer recognizes the problem and has put it
on his ever-growing list of problems in New York that need fixing.
Other options such as satellite broadband exist for rural customers seeking
high-speed Internet. Also, new technology is on the horizon, such as the
wireless internet service Clarity Connect said it was hoping to bring to market
here soon. However, the sad fact is that many of our rural residents are lagging
behind in the increasingly digital age in which we live.
In between Spitzer and the private sector coming to the rescue, those rural
folks are at a competitive disadvantage if they run businesses or conduct
business at home. Paying bills, filing taxes or conducting banking transactions
are all easily done online with the click of a mouse now.
A state report released on Thursday showed 54 percent of households in New York
are hooked into high-speed, broadband Internet-access service. That number is
far more accurate than Federal Communications Commission data that shows 97
percent of people in the state live in areas served by broadband carriers. The
director of the state Public Service Commission has said the FCC data is
probably overstated because it counts everyone in a zip code as having access if
anyone in that area does.
The Internet, for better or worse, has essentially become a needed household
appliance like the telephone. As such, access to Internet, whether it be a
business person trying to make a buck or a citizen trying to pay a bill, is
something local and state officials should work overtime on to make reliable,
fast and competitively priced. Without access, we are looking at creating a
digital divide that will create even more “haves” and “have-nots” in this
country. That divide is something we do not need.
It is our hope that Spitzer puts the state's muscle behind his words in working
to bring broadband Internet service here ASAP (he has said his hope is to have
nearly universal access by the end of his first term), so rural residents do not
have to be penalized for choosing a homestead or business location that isn't
urban or wired.
Spitzer seeks to spread broadband to rural areas
Article published Jan 13, 2007
By Jay Gallagher
Albany Bureau
ALBANY — In the 1920s and 1930s, virtually everyone in cities had access to
electricity and telephones. But many rural Americans did not, until the
government stepped in to provide incentives and regulations to spread utility
service.
That's the situation many rural New Yorkers now find themselves in with the
newest technology: lack of broadband Internet access, necessary for the
high-speed computer connections.
“This is a critical economic-development issue,” said Brian McMahon, executive
director of the New York State Economic Development Council. “Broadband access
isn't a luxury any more. It's an absolute requirement. You have to have this.”
Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who has made reviving the Upstate economy one of the major
goals of his new administration, sees spreading broadband access as a major tool
to attract jobs to the region.
New York has 16.5 broadband lines per 100 people — a penetration rate in the
middle of the nation's largest states, 10th highest of any state but just below
the national average of 16.8 per 100 people, according to figures from the
Federal Communications Commission.
There are now about 4.2 million broadband lines in New York, more than 1 million
more than two years ago. Forty-four percent of New York homes now have
broadband, according to state Public Service Commission figures.
But it is not available everywhere. While most parts of New York City and its
suburbs, as well as the Hudson Valley, the Thruway Corridor and along much of
the Route 17 corridor through the Southern Tier are wired, many rural areas are
not.
“If you get 20-30 miles off those corridors access becomes an issue and a
problem,” McMahon said.
The state is also way behind almost a dozen other countries, mostly on the
Pacific Rim and in Western Europe, according to a Spitzer aide.
In his State of the State address this week, Spitzer said he's going to try to
make broadband available across the whole state.
“Here in New York, we face a digital divide,” he said. “If you're a child
growing up in South Korea, your Internet is 10 times faster at half the price
than if you're a child growing up in the Southern Tier or in the South Bronx.
New Yorkers on the wrong side of the divide simply cannot compete in today's
economy.”
The state plans to first map where broadband is available, said Spitzer aide
Drew Warshaw.
“We're going to take a look at where the dark zones are,” he said. Then on top
of that map, they will put another one that locates state-owned and
local-government-owned infrastructure.
He said the state will try to “leverage existing resources,” such as utility
poles, rights of way and towers being built for a statewide emergency-response
wireless network to try to strike deals with broadband providers to further
extend their networks.
The plan is to bring together people from industry, labor, academia and
not-for-profit institutions and direct ask them to come up with a solution.
“By the end of the first term, we want to be well on our way” to near-universal
coverage, he said, referring to when Spitzer's term as governor expires in 2010.
“If we're not there yet, there should be a clear road to get there.”
“This is not something New York has thought of in a comprehensive way before,”
he said, adding that the cost would be “not astronomical” — less than $100
million.
Some counties aren't waiting for the state and have already embarked on their
own projects to make broadband more widely available.
Ontario County, in the Finger Lakes region, is preparing to build a 180-mile,
$7.5 million fiber-optic ring around the county, which is slated for completion
in 2009.
“The philosophy behind this is we're building a piece of infrastructure, like
building a road was in the last century,” said County Administrator Geoffrey
Astles.
The idea is to bring the service to the more rural parts of the county by making
it cheaper for the broadband companies to get their service there.
A key advantage the county has is it can repay the cost of building the ring
over 20 years (with the proceeds from renting the wires in the ring) whereas
telecom companies want to make their money back in just a few years, said county
Economic Development Executive Director Mike Manikowski.
Follow File: Rural Internet options slowly increase
Article published Feb 20, 2007
Jim Nagel, a small business owner on Canaan Road in the Town of Caroline,
believed he could only get slow, unreliable dial-up Internet when interviewed
for a Jan. 14 Journal story on the lack of high speed services in rural pockets
of Tompkins County.
But soon after, he learned his phone provider Frontier could help him. Now, the difference in negotiating the Internet is like “night and day.”
“I tried the same tool catalogue I tried to access before,” he said, and what once took 20 minutes — often with his computer crashing — took only two. Now he's interested in getting a Web site established for the Nagel and Wolff furniture business he runs with his wife, Elizabeth Nagel.
He said it's costing about $90 a month for his new phone and Internet package that covers long-distance service. He figures Internet service accounts for about half of the total.
Nagel's neighbor, Michael Ludgate, had been told by Frontier that DSL wouldn't work. But earlier this month, several days after Nagel got the high-speed service, Ludgate and his family also signed on for $45 a month, switching from dial-up.
It got better for these neighbors who live near the Caroline and Dryden town lines southeast of Ithaca, but access to high speed Internet connections in rural areas still lags behind what's available nearby in the City of Ithaca or small communities like Slaterville Springs.
In his State of the State address in early January, Gov. Eliot Spitzer said the lack of broadband access in some rural areas Upstate was a significant barrier to economic development and that he wanted access to be nearly universal by the end of his first term.
Spitzer aide Drew Warshaw said earlier this month that first locating “dark zones” — areas where high-speed Internet access is not available — is the starting point toward any attempt to expand services.
Town of Caroline Supervisor Don Barber equates rural high speed Internet services to the electrical and phone infrastructure and views it as a government responsibility. He has no formal plan through the town to further develop high-speed Internet.
Barber lives in a so-called “dark zone,” on Landon Road near Slaterville Springs. He wishes he had the high-speed service that's available to his neighbors on adjacent roads and in nearby Slaterville Springs, but he can only get dial-up.
“I can check (the Internet) at five in the morning and get through. This time of day (4:40 p.m.), it disconnects,” he said.
Virgil Oster lives at 851 Harford Road, near Slaterville Springs in the Town of Caroline. He couldn't get Internet through cable or phone lines. He buys satellite Internet service through Hughes Net.
His satellite Internet is fast, although it's about $110 a month.
Tim Ganschow, vice president of Agristar, a satellite Internet company aimed at farmers, said satellite Internet service will work anywhere in the continental United States where there's “a clear view of the southern sky.” He said the most popular service is $59.95 a month after setting up a satellite dish and other equipment for $399.
Some people get mobile Internet through their cell phones. But coverage areas are limited, Ganschow said.
Parts of Tompkins County still don't have cell phone service. These are some of the same hilly areas that lack high-speed Internet through phone lines or cable.
While Oster is glad to have satellite Internet as opposed to dial-up or none at all, he's also eager for change and more options.
“We cannot wait to see what our new governor does to bring all the nice services to rural upstate, as he said he would,” he wrote in an e-mail. “We are captives of very limited services in a very high tech world. We can go to the moon, but I cannot have a cell phone at home, or cable, or a choice of phone service.”
Likewise, Jim Savino, who works at Cornell University, said he was shocked after he moved to 61 Simms Hill Road, about two miles south of the Village of Dryden and learned he couldn't get high-speed Internet through Time Warner's Roadrunner, like his family did in Ithaca. He had assumed it was available everywhere and didn't want to go back to dial-up, he said.
Savino said he wouldn't have purchased the house had he known dial-up was his only choice and wondered whether the lack of high-speed Internet should be part of real estate disclosure policies. He said he pursued Time Warner with requests for Roadrunner high-speed Internet services. With five children, one income and concerns about prices, Savino said Internet through his phone company, Frontier, was a “last resort.”
He prefers Time Warner's Roadrunner, he said, and logged about a dozen phone calls with a Time Warner manager, wrote numerous e-mails and sent a letter signed by 30 neighbors who also wanted high speed services, but so far he hasn't been able to get Roadrunner in his neighborhood.
Savino and Oster may have another option. Chuck Bartosch said he expects his business, Clarity Connect, to have high-speed Internet available through radio frequencies throughout most of the county, for $29 a month, by the end of 2007. Savino's Simms Hill Road neighborhood should have it in April, Bartosch said.
Bartosch hopes to have high-speed Internet available in the Town of Caroline by this summer.
Tompkins Weekly (http://www.tompkinsweekly.com)
Glossary of Terms:
downstream - downloaded from the internet down to your computer (i.e. videos from YouTube, webpages, etc.)
upstream - uploaded from your computer to the internet (i.e. emails sent with attachments)
| File size | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connection speed | 250KB | 500KB | 1MB | 2MB |
| 56Kbps | 0:45 | 1:30 | 3:00 | 6:00 |
| 500Kps | 0:05 | 0:10 | 0:20 | 0:40 |
| 1MB | 0:03 | 0:05 | 0:10 | 0:20 |
| Service | Speed Down | Speed Up |
|---|---|---|
| Dialup | 45 Kbps | 30 Kbps |
| Wireless Internet | 60-80 Kbps | 60-80 Kbps |
| DSL | 256 Kbps | 256 Kbps |
| Satellite | 1.5 Mbps | 256 Kbps |
| Radio Frequency | 1-3 Mbps | 1-3 Mbps |
| Cable | 5 Mbps | 5 Mbps |
| Electric Lines | 200 Mbps | 200 Mbps |