Good Solid Internet Connection on the North Shore

IamZon

New member
Sep 22, 2012
58
0
0
I need business-grade internet and am interested in spending much time on the North Shore. The last time I did this, my business suffered because of spotty Internet. 3 years ago.

Has anything changed? Can I make proper plans to have the infrastructure that is necessary?
 

Bob K

Silver
Aug 16, 2004
2,520
121
63
We use the higher priced package from De Lancer in Sosua and are very happy with it.

Bob K
 

Castellamonte

Bronze
Mar 3, 2005
1,764
50
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Cabrera
www.villa-castellamonte.com
Cabrera has Claro, which seems to be the Spanish word for "spotty" when it comes to Internet. I have two lines (highest speed they sell) coming in with a multiplexed router to give be a redundant connection. It seems to help but maybe I'm dreaming. Still, I can conduct just about any business I need (GotoMeeting, etc.) without problems.
 

drstock

Silver
Oct 29, 2010
4,502
2,086
113
Cabarete
When we first had Cable del Norte internet in Cabarete three years ago we had endless problems. But since then it has improved a lot and (touch wood) is now pretty reliable.

Having said that, cable TV was out for 24 hours until this morning, so as a company they are not infallible.
 

cjp2010

New member
Mar 25, 2013
397
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0
I have DeLancer. Since I have been in my current house for nearly 2 1/2 years now it has been great. Very reliable and no issues with speed. I have dropped my connection maybe a total of five times in the past 2 1/2 years and each time for just a couple of minutes. But in the residence prior to that it was horrible. Some of them are friends of ours and they tell us that a lot of the issues are with wiring both in the streets and in some of the old buildings and in some cases they aren't getting replaced any time soon. So unfortunately depending on exactly where you live you may get anything from very spotty to very reliable.
 

belgiank

Silver
Jun 13, 2009
3,251
103
0
I can't complain about the DeLancer... when we moved in 8 months ago and said we needed the internet for work, they came to have a look and said they would replace the chinese crap cable (their words) with a decent one. They would provide the cable, I had to have the trench digged.

3MB plan, and so far very reliable and true constant speed.

BelgianK
 

dv8

Gold
Sep 27, 2006
31,266
363
0
we have internet from oscuro and they only messed up twice in 4 years or so. but big time: weeks of poor/no internet.

if you are willing to spend oscuro attends large businesses as well. kind of the stuff used by call centers, banks and other large companies. of course we are talking heavy money here but it can be done...
 
We have Delancer too. Hardly ever have a problem. Have them for internet and Cable.
They HAVE AWESOME customer service at least the office in GH does. If there is a problem they come that day or the next.

They set up internet i think the same day and cable the next day or it was the other way around. All i know is within 5 days of moving here we had Internet and Cable.

Our internet is the most expensive package b/c Wife needs it for music work. It's like 3400 Rd a month for the fastest internet and the most channels you can get with them. Didn't get the porn Channels though ;-) Not good with keeping track of bills but it is around that price. Coming from Canada, it was $250 a month at least so cheap to me!
 

IamZon

New member
Sep 22, 2012
58
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0
Thanks for the replies! Important Follow-up

1, where is the best location for internet to be most reliable on the North?

2, How much does Satellite cost?

3, Any idea on the big installation costs associated with big installations. I would pay as much for GREAT internet as I would for rent - it's that important to me.

Thanks
 

belgiank

Silver
Jun 13, 2009
3,251
103
0
you can go way higher than the speed (and price) mentioned by Harleysrock. Maybe GH is still limited. I know you can go up to at least 50mbs with Delancer in Sosua. At a price.

My 3mb down/1.5 up is around 3600rds (cable tv not included). The next plan which is 6mb is around 6800rds, and so on...

BelgianK
 

IamZon

New member
Sep 22, 2012
58
0
0
and the service is VERY reliable?

Are there variations in service internet / power from Puerto Plata - Cabarate ?
 

granca

Bronze
Aug 20, 2007
1,418
48
0
87
Satellite . Have a look at isosat.net, they use telstar 11 centre of beam is here in the RD
, quite a lot of money though.
 

Purple Caribbean

New member
Aug 4, 2013
1
0
0
The correct answer at the moment is Claro.

We have used Claro, and Delancer side-by-side at several locations for personal, business and WiFi applications for hotel and condominuim projects. A few years ago DeLancer's options and service were more reliable. Claro has literally blown them out of the water in the past year for anyone who has bothered to look.

For our property in Los Ceros we recently added their television package as well. Our plan includes a telephone line, 800 minutes of free calls to the USA, Canada, and most other countries around the world, 100+ digital television channls in English and Spanish with DVR, PIP and more bells and whistles than DirecTV and none of the hassles with Sky. And our internet currently tops out at over 7.25mbps. Service has been outstanding from same-day techs on installs to not a single outage of more than five minutes (once when a transformer blew) in 13 months.

The cost for all this and 7.25mbps service? $3,400 pesos/month.

Speedtest:
Ookla Speedtest - My Results

I have a fully authorized Hughes satellite system I have just dismantled for anyone in the boonies without access to Claro, G3/4, or DeLancer that's interested. Thanks to Claro for the first time in 15 years it is not necessary to maintain my US businesses the service is so good. Drawbacks with satellite are cost, (US $150 per month), bandwidth limitations (500mb/day), and latency (200ms+ since the signal has to bounce up to a satellite and back twice each way for every packet) that destroys things like Skype and other VOIP programs.

One big issue not mentioned here with DeLancer, or any cable based internet system, is topology. With ADSL you are you, and no one shares your services. Just like your phone line.

With cable, modems/hubs are placed on every block or neighborhood and everyone in that area shares a connection to that modem/hub. As such everyone's internet speed is limited by the total bandwidth available to that hub. The farther away from the central office, and the more people subscribed to that hub the less available for everyone, and it is to the point now in many locations in Sosua that the total available to the hub is less than the total guaranteed to each customer, and speed suffers. In addition there are severe security issues. During one installation last year in Sosua I was able to see every local WiFi, printer, PC connected to the hub by every users. Hundreds of them. Several WiFi's had default passwords allowing me to snoop inside, change the SSID, etc. if I so chose. Because of the use of the upstream modem your router's NAT settings are useless. No way to access a PC or cameras from outside your LAN using a static IP or dynamic DNS services.

For geographic blocked content Claro's IP's show as DR or Mexico, at the moment DeLancer's show as USA/Miami.

So keep those issues in mind as well if internet is really important to you.
 
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