- Thread starter JC171
- Start date
Is wireless internet conextion for laptop easily found in DR?
Free wireless internet
Perhaps you can find it by doing a search.
We certainly have it here in Sosua.
There was somebody on here recently who did a survey for wireless services in the DR.JC171 said:
Perhaps you can find it by doing a search.
We certainly have it here in Sosua.
Perhaps you should contact Rafael atGringo said:
http://www.dr-tourist.tv/pages/wifi.html
and let him know, as he lists all the hot spots he can find in the DR.
If you have hard line telephones, you should be able to subscribe to the internet.Mirador said:
You may only get dial up service, as the "flash" (DSL) loses signal with distance and may not reach you.
I just installed a wireless router at the Cosa Nostra restaurant in Santiago, (which I am now administering) yeah I emailed that guy and let him know in case he wants to list it.
There is always the possibility of sat link, although I have not been impressed by the reports from those who have used it.Mirador said:
Another possibility is a Verizon service.
I don't know all the details, but one of the DR1 members uses it.
He somehow links up his laptop to a Kyocera cellphone with browser capability, and it hooks up with a tower some odd 30 K's away.
I believe that the Kyocera is a model SE47.
You can e-mail me with regards to getting in touch with the fellow who uses this service, or just get in touch with Verizon and inquire.
Regards, Marco.
Rocky said:
Hey, what are you talking about
Our connectivity is at least 30% more reliable than anything verizon can dish up... and I'll prove it if you like! I just don't know how to prove it, excepting that we, and our customers are always up! Even during the hurricanes one of our bigger installs stayed up right through the worst storm. They were using their satellite voice over IP to call to California and call back to Santo Domingo to try and co-ordinate emergency response, while the storm was howling. Times that satellite service is not reliable, is if it is installed incorrectly, or configured incorrectly, or specified too cheaply for the job that it needs to do, or you use the wrong provider and oversubscribed satellite services. I am currently working over a .94 test dish that is very well installed and perfectly pointed. It is thick cloud cover out there and I still have a signal strength of 74 and no degradation in speed or service. Just generally, Verizon does offer a microwave link for wireless connectivity (DSL and higher speeds) effective up to I believe 30 miles from a switching station. This is one of their higher priced offerings and is quite up there in terms of price. It is fairly reliable, excepting when it is not, and then there are only a very few technicians that know how to deal with it.
Mirador said:
Hi Mirador here is Verizon's rate sheet.
http://www.verizon.net.do/productos.../planesyprecios/negocios.asp?categoria=nflash
Oops, a quick edit here after I actually read the tread... If you have no landlines, you cannot get Verizon. There are no other options for your area excepting a Satellite Dish or a Microwave Link from Verizon.
As you so aptly pointed out, the OP has no possibility of getting a land line, so none of my good reports about Verizon's DSL, here in Sosua are applicable.
I also have no direct experience with sat links, but at the time that Codetel's service was miserable, I knew a lot of people who tried the sat link and were so disappointed that they went back to the lousy Codetel service, so I based my opinions on that.
I imagine the sat links have improved throughout the years, as our Verizon Flash service as well.
As I average approx. 24 to 48 hours of downtime per year, it would be difficult to beat that by 30%, but, maybe you never have disconnects.
You may also have better speed. I pull in between 300 & 390 kbps and can download from a good site, 340 to 345.
I am interested in knowing what type of speed and reliability you get, as I am frequently asked the question, and it would be nice to be able to give some accurate answers.
Cost per month would be good to know as well, if you can give us that info.
Thanks, Marco.
I also have no direct experience with sat links, but at the time that Codetel's service was miserable, I knew a lot of people who tried the sat link and were so disappointed that they went back to the lousy Codetel service, so I based my opinions on that.
I imagine the sat links have improved throughout the years, as our Verizon Flash service as well.
As I average approx. 24 to 48 hours of downtime per year, it would be difficult to beat that by 30%, but, maybe you never have disconnects.
You may also have better speed. I pull in between 300 & 390 kbps and can download from a good site, 340 to 345.
I am interested in knowing what type of speed and reliability you get, as I am frequently asked the question, and it would be nice to be able to give some accurate answers.
Cost per month would be good to know as well, if you can give us that info.
Thanks, Marco.
Chris,
I went to that Verizon website and the rates they show there are way more than what I pay.
They show the 256 line, which I subscribe to as costing 3,150/month, whereas I pay 1,494/month.
Maybe this is page is for gringo newbies?
I went to that Verizon website and the rates they show there are way more than what I pay.
They show the 256 line, which I subscribe to as costing 3,150/month, whereas I pay 1,494/month.
Maybe this is page is for gringo newbies?
Rocky said:
Sort of nearby, it's on the corner of Sabana Larga and Calle Proyecto 3 in Los Jardines, phone # there is 582-0070.
Restaurant was formerly operated by my grandmother who was a perfectionist, but between the fact that it is somewhat tucked away as far as restaurants go, and the fact that she never was very good at marketing the restaurant never got a following, and is usually pretty quiet, unfortunately.
A lot of people like to go there with their girlfriends, since it has a pretty romantic ambience and the wife is not likely to show up.
Rocky said:
Hi Rocky.. 2 replies .. I cannot say anything about the Verizon website... I just listed the link - real or not real, cheap or expensive, cannot say as I did not even look at the prices. There are price differences between residential and business services though, and I would expect that the one that you pay, is for a residential service (you lucky dog!). Just last week I checked on price for our new store soon to open in Sosua and received the 3,150/month quote.
As far as satellite uplinks are concerned, the number of possibilities over the past two years have increased tremendously. Around 5 years ago, when we first got interested and learnt this stuff, we had one option, telephone line up, and satellite down. We now find ourselves dealing with over 40 different configurations, speeds, offerings and so on. We now deal with 4 major suppliers each with their own satellites up there, and a dizzying array of hardware suppliers. For business, there is in my opinion in the Caribbean not a better and more reliable service to be found. With the synchronous services now, you can even place a sizable webserver underneath the satellite dish and you can get whatever bandwidth you want into a reliable network operating center with quite acceptable traceroutes. We have currently an on-line university out of Saba Island that is going to go satellite and we were worried about the bandwidth but, to our amazement, one of our providers was able to offer the wack of bandwith at a reasonable cost. So, this technology is simply developing at a dizzying speed.
Where satellite still falls a little flat in terms of cost, is for residential use. The cost of the equipment is coming down as we speak, but is still a little high, compared with say a terrestrial DSL modem. But then again, the equipment is high tech and 'big' stuff. Having said that, we've had deep price cuts on equipment just recently. The cheapest monthly connectivity one can get is around US120 per month - still high. If one can get a few households in a community together to install and share the connection wirelessly, it becomes really affordable and it is a good bet these days for condos, flats and so on.. and ideal for wide area wireless applications.
Also, the way satellite speeds are quoted, especially the non-synchronous services, is misleading. If I say 56 up and 400 down, you think, Oh, so slow. But in reality, the user does not see or experience the non-synchronicity... and the feel is of working at 400. The slow upload only comes into play only if you do large uploads, and for that, we have synchronous services these days. Also, the satellite owners have what they call 'fair use' policies. Your allocated upload bandwidth goes into a 'bucket' and if you use it non-frequently, you get priority in the que (damn, I cannot spell that word!). If you 'overuse' your allocation, you upload a little slower.
As I always say, terrestrial is one's first option because of cost. It is simply cheaper. When you don't have that option available, for me it is satellite. I've been working in the Caribbean under a satellite dish for going on four years now. The only time we really went down, is when Richard wanted to adjust our dish to look at another satellite while standing on a chair. Well, you know Richard... the chair toppled, he held onto the dish which neatly and slowly bent, and placed him gently and safely on the ground. We managed to fix the mangled dish
. Reliability, we have mission critical customers under satellite dishes. Outages, we don't get 'em, if the dish is correctly sized, unless all the weather on the planet works together and showers us with sunspots and all kinds of weird phenomena. Having said that, a whole satellite went down just about 2 months ago. It just simply broke and is now space garbage.
So to conclude, satellite uplinks these days are rock solid in terms of reliability although one does get the odd hardware failure and need to swop out a piece of hardware (modem or LNB or something and usually you find the customer put it into another electrical outlet outside of the UPS), speed can be whatever you want these days and the speed is real. All this good stuff only if it is correctly installed for the application, points at the correct satellite for the application, correctly configured, sized and maintained. Almost like our battery banks and inverters.
Thanks for the info.
I'm sure those who cannot get hardlines will be interested.
BTW: The word is cue.
I'm sure those who cannot get hardlines will be interested.
BTW: The word is cue.